Tutorials/Defeating temples

This page documents how to locate and defeat temples.

Desert temple


To find a desert temple, you can either look above ground, or search while mining. If you are underground and you run into a large, square formation of sandstone, it is a desert temple.

There is also a tool that can find desert temples for you, in case you don't want to search them yourself.

Or you can use the command ( in pocket edition). Note: Using the locate command can only locate the nearest temple, no matter what kind of temple it is. It can be a desert temple, jungle temple, or even a witch hut or igloo. But if you're in a desert there's more chance for the nearest temple to be a desert temple. The same is with jungle (jungle temple), swamp (witch hut), and ice plains (igloo).

When attempting to enter the hidden chamber, the player must take care not to step on the pressure plate at the bottom of the pit, as the plate is connected to 9 blocks of TNT just under the hidden chamber's sandstone floor. The pressure plate is situated directly under the blue terracotta. The TNT will cause an explosion sufficient to kill most players (and may even destroy the player's drops), as well as destroy all four of the chests, including their loot.

To avoid the trap, you can dig out one of the blocks orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to the center block, and reach the chamber by any of conventional methods. Or, if reached from below, it is possible just to mine the way into the chamber.

To see better in the treasure room, it is actually best to destroy the blue terracotta first, as during the day, the light from the sun will shine down into the room, reaching into the treasure room if the terracotta is removed.

You may also make a staircase and go down to the treasures.

Another way to get down is to dig out the blue clay and use a water bucket to get down.

Finding
The dense foliage of jungle biomes tends to block jungle temples from sight. The easiest way of clearing the path is to burn the foliage with flint and steel.

The command can also be used and it's explained in the desert temple section.

Puzzle


In each jungle temple, there is a puzzle, composed of a set of levers on the lower level. When the levers are flipped into the correct positions, a block on the middle level of the temple is removed from the floor, and a small room with a chest inside is revealed.

Alternatively, breaking through the walls with a pickaxe is an effective method of bypassing the puzzle and taking the loot.

Trap


When attempting to open the chest, the player must take care not to step on the tripwire in the middle of the hall. It looks like mossy cobblestone, but hidden behind some vines is a dispenser filled with arrows. The dispenser will fire when the tripwire is stepped on or broken without shears. If the player can't break it, hugging the right hand wall will cause the arrow to fly harmlessly past the player.