Enchanting



Enchanting is a mechanic which utilizes an Enchantment Table to add special abilities to armor, tools, and weapons. Enchantments require the usage of experience points, with successively higher enchantments requiring more experience.

Enchanting Basics
An item can be enchanted by first right clicking an Enchantment Table, which will display a GUI with one item slot. Upon placing the item in the item slot, three randomized options will appear on the left of the GUI. Only enchantments requiring an amount of levels equal to or greater than the player's can be selected. Each option will imbue the item with a randomized set of enchantments which are dependent on the number of levels spent.

The text on the three options of the enchanting GUI is meaningless, but the level number influences both amount and type of enchantments gained, with a higher level resulting in more enchantments and more potent forms of said enchantments.

Enchantments
Enchantment names are randomly constructed from the following list of words. Three to five words are chosen from the list and appended to each other, then displayed in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. Note that the names have no meaning and are not saved on the enchanted item (meaning they will tell you nothing about what the resulting spell will be), and they are only displayed in the Enchantment Table interface.

The following list of words contain all the possible enchantment words after de-ciphered from the Standard Galactic Alphabet.

"scrolls klaatu berata niktu xyzzy bless curse light darkness fire air earth water hot dry cold wet elder ignite snuff embiggen twist shorten stretch fiddle destroy imbue galvanize enchant free limited range of the towards inside sphere cube self other ball mental physical grow shrink demon elemental spirit animal creature beast humanoid undead fresh stale"

Repairing an enchanted weapon/tool will remove the enchantment on it.

When an enchanted weapon deals bonus damage to a mob, circular blue particles fly off of that mob, similar to getting a critical hit.

There are several levels on most enchants, and when you enchant you can get several enchants on each weapon/tool/armor.

Enchantable Items
Items such as swords, shovels, pickaxes, axes, bows, and every part of armor of any material can be enchanted. Hoes, shears, fishing rods and flint and steel are not enchantable.

Enchantment Types
EID is the item's Effect Identification Number in the game code.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center; width: 65em" ! EID ! style="width: 10em;" |Enchantable item/s ! Name ! Effect type ! Max. Enchantment Power ! style="width: 10em;" |Per-level bonus ! Notes ! colspan=7 |

Armor Enchantments
! 0 ! 1 ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! colspan=7 |
 * - align="center"
 * Protection
 * Converts all damage from all sources (except from The Void and the /kill command) to armor damage.
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from helmets, which can receive the Respiration and Aqua Affinity enchantments and boots which can receive feather falling.
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from helmets, which can receive the Respiration and Aqua Affinity enchantments and boots which can receive feather falling.
 * - align="center"
 * Fire Protection
 * Protection against fire
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Feather Falling
 * Less fall damage
 * IV
 * +1 to reduction of falling damage (half a heart)
 * This is a great way to prevent the fall damage from Ender Pearl teleportations.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Blast Protection
 * Protection against explosions
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Projectile Protection
 * Protection against projectile entities (e.g. arrows).
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot receive any other type of Protection, apart from boots, which can receive the Feather Falling Enchantment.
 * - align="center"
 * Respiration
 * Decreases the rate of air loss underwater; increases time between damage while suffocating.
 * III
 * Underwater breathing time +15 seconds; time between suffocation damage +1 second.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Aqua Affinity
 * Increases underwater mining rate
 * I
 * I

Sword Enchantments
! 16 ! 17 ! 18 ! 19 ! 20 ! 21 ! colspan=7 |
 * - align="center"
 * Sharpness
 * Extra damage
 * V
 * Up to 1.5 hearts extra damage per level.
 * Extra damage is random for every hit, but will always be at least 0.5 heart. A sword with this enchantment cannot receive Smite or Bane of Arthropods.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Smite
 * Extra damage to zombies, zombie pigmen, and skeletons.
 * V
 * Up to 2 hearts extra damage per level.
 * Extra damage is random for every hit, but will always be at least plus 0.5 heart. A sword with this enchantment cannot receive Sharpness or Bane of Arthropods.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Bane of Arthropods
 * Extra damage to spiders, cave spiders and silverfish.
 * V
 * Up to 2 hearts extra damage per level.
 * Extra damage is random for every hit, but will always be at least 0.5 heart. A sword with this enchantment cannot receive Sharpness or Smite.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Knockback
 * Increases the knockback dealt when attacking mobs and players.
 * II
 * More knockback.
 * Does not stack with knockback caused by attacking while sprinting. Note that this enchantment can sometimes make experience harder to obtain, as it knocks the mob's body back, causing the orbs to spawn farther away.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Fire Aspect
 * Fire Aspect
 * Lights the target on fire
 * II
 * Affects duration of burning.
 * Will cook meat if mob is killed by the fire damage.
 * - align="center"
 * Looting
 * Mobs have a chance to drop more loot.
 * III
 * +1 to max loot drop per level.
 * This also increases the chance of getting a rare drop.
 * This also increases the chance of getting a rare drop.

Tool Enchantments
! 32 ! 33 ! 34 ! 35
 * - align="center"
 * Efficiency
 * Faster resource gathering while in use.
 * V
 * +50% mining speed.
 * Efficiency V gives a 250% speedboost, breaking some blocks instantly. The speed increase applies to blocks that the tool is appropriate for and those that can be mined by hand.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Silk Touch
 * Silk Touch
 * Blocks mined will drop themselves, even if it should drop something else (e.g. Stone will drop stone, not Cobblestone).
 * I
 * Allows the collection of normally unobtainable blocks such as Ores, Grass, Mycelium and Huge Mushrooms. The normal requirments for mining blocks still applies: e.g. An iron or better pickaxe must still be used to retrieve diamond ore blocks etc.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Unbreaking
 * At each use, there's a chance the tool's durability will not decrease.
 * III
 * The tool will last an entire tool durability longer.
 * For example, an Unbreaking III item has a chance to use up a use of (100/(3+1))% = (100/4)% = 25%, so Unbreaking III should, on average, make a tool last 4 times as long.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Fortune
 * Fortune
 * Can multiply the drop rate of items from blocks
 * III
 * I: 30% * 2 (30% more)

II: 25% * 2, 25% * 3 (75% more)

III: 20% * 2, 20% * 3, 20% * 4 (120% more)

! colspan=7 |
 * Only applies to item drops such as coal, diamond, redstone, lapis lazuli and nether wart. When used on wheat, only the seeds' drop rate is affected. If used on Tall Grass the seeds drop rate is also increased. Increases the chance for gravel to drop flint instead of itself, up to 100% at III. It doesn't affect clay ball drop rates (it is always 4). Also increases the drop rate of apples from trees.

Bow Enchantments
! 48 ! 49 ! 50 ! 51
 * - align="center"
 * Power
 * Extra damage
 * V
 * Extra damage is dealt
 * Multiplies base damage by 1.5 at Power I. Additional levels increase the multiplier by .25 each for a maximum of 2.5. At Power V and with the bow fully drawn it will kill most mobs with a single shot (11-12.5 hearts damage).
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Punch
 * Knockback effect on mobs
 * II
 * Mobs are knocked back farther.
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Flame
 * Sets arrows and mobs on fire.
 * I
 * Sets arrows on fire when shot, and mobs when hit.
 * - align="center"
 * Sets arrows on fire when shot, and mobs when hit.
 * - align="center"
 * Infinity
 * Gives infinite shots with a single arrow.
 * I
 * This can be extremely useful against the Ender Dragon when fighting it in The End, since the player can no longer return for more arrows to use. However, arrows fired by a bow with this enchantment cannot be retrieved, similar to the arrows fired by Skeletons.
 * }
 * This can be extremely useful against the Ender Dragon when fighting it in The End, since the player can no longer return for more arrows to use. However, arrows fired by a bow with this enchantment cannot be retrieved, similar to the arrows fired by Skeletons.
 * }

Standard Galactic Alphabet
The enchantments are written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet which is a simple alphabet substitution cipher used in the Commander Keen series of computer games (see that page for the code key).

This is something that may help you decode the language (but will not give leads on the enchanting result):

History
Notch first tweeted about the Enchantment Table on September 30th 2011.

Enchanting was added to the game in 1.9 prerelease 2. However, enchanting was not the same in the 1.9 prerelease 2. Enchanting did NOT require bookshelves to get maximum enchantments. Also, many enchantments were not added back then. Enchantments are labeled in the enchanting table as random words in the Standard Galactic Alphabet.

In 1.1, four bow enchantments (Power, Flame, Punch and Infinity) were added to the game.

As of snapshot 12w05a, enchanting no longer requires experience in creative mode.

As of snapshot 12w06a, Golden Swords and Bows have a small chance of being already enchanted when dropped by their respective mobs.

As of snapshot 12w17a, Ice and Glass Panes can again be collected with a Silk Touch-enchanted tool.

Bugs

 * In multiplayer, players can only see their own enchantment auras, and not those of other players.
 * In multiplayer, items that can not normally be enchanted will not appear as enchanted when they are, however they still work as enchanted.
 * In singleplayer and multiplayer, hitting an Enderman with an arrow from a Flame enchanted bow will set the Enderman on fire even though it does not take damage from the arrow itself.
 * If you quit after enchanting an item, but before taking it off the enchantment table, you may lose the item.

Trivia

 * Looting enchantment does not process on Wool, Spider Eye, Raw Chicken, and Cooked Chicken.
 * Items that are enchanted will receive a glowing aura around them. Editing  in   can change the glow accordingly. On past versions of Minecraft and only on certain graphics cards, enchanted items would cause the hotbar to become semi-transparent whilst they were the selected item.
 * Repairing an enchanted item using another item will remove the enchantment it has.
 * On October 1st 2011, Notch tweeted an image of the enchantment screen, with enchantments written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. The first enchantment translates onto "Well Played Internets You Are Good", the second translated into "These Names Will Be Random And Confusing", and the third translates to "Each Spell Costs Experience Levels". The Standard Galactic Alphabet or SGA was originally created by Tom Hall for use in the Commander Keen series of computer games.
 * Three of the possible words for enchantments are "the elder scrolls," likely a joke at Bethesda, creator of "The Elder Scrolls" series and whose parent company, Zenimax, was suing Mojang.
 * The words "klaatu berata niktu" are a (misspelled) reference to "Klaatu barada nikto", a phrase that originates from the 1951 movie The Day the Earth Stood Still and has been since used as a reference in many other movies, cartoons and games, more popularly in Army of Darkness, Star Wars Episode VI, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles(1987) and Duck Tales. Similarly, "Xyzzy" is a magic spell in the game "Colossal Cave Adventure" and has been used in several other games as an Easter Egg or cheat code.
 * "Embiggen" is a fictitious word from The Simpsons, from a quote attributed to Springfield's founder, Jebidiah Springfield: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man".
 * All tools, swords and armor enchanted before 1.9 Prerelease 4 will only have Feather Falling I as their enchantment.
 * The Silk Touch enchantment is possible on all levels of enchantment when enchanting a golden pickaxe, although extremely rare on enchantments below level 20.
 * Enchanted items still pulsate while you have paused the game.
 * It was mentioned that, in a future update, the properties of an enchanted item may give it a random yet unique name or even an exciting look in order to add more of an rpg effect.
 * The Protection enchantment converts hunger damage to armor damage.
 * In 1.2 Zombies, Zombie Pigmen and Skeletons are able to drop rare items, this includes enchanted weaponry.
 * It's not possible to get more than 4 glowstone dust from a glowstone block using the fortune enchantment.
 * If a pig, chicken, or cow is killed instantly using a bow with the Flame enchantment, it will drop cooked food. However, if one is killed instantly using a diamond sword with the Fire Aspect enchantment, it will not drop cooked food.
 * You can only enchant an item one time, but it is possible to get 2 or more enchantments on an item when first enchanting it.