Enchanting



Enchanting is the process of enchantment using an Enchantment Table whereby special bonuses are placed on tools, weapons or armor. To enchant an item, you will need the required Experience level for the enchantment and an Enchantment Table. As of Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4, no enchantments costing above five Experience levels are available unless you place bookshelves near the Enchantment Table. The number of bookshelves increases the level of enchantments further. In order to have an effect, the bookshelf must have a line of sight to the table, (with the exception of the corners) be placed horizontally within 2 blocks of the enchantment table and must be either on the same level or level above the table. A table surrounded by six bookshelves on each side with a one block gap gives access to level 39 recipes. A table surrounded by thirty bookshelves (two layers of fifteen each, leaving room for a door) gives access to level 50 recipes. However, because the table stops counting the bookshelves at thirty, two of the bookshelves can be left out without any effect on the enchantment levels. This allows for a doorway large enough for the player to walk through without requiring elaborate methods to enter the room housing the enchantment table.

Notch has stated that Enchanting will work in three stages and the benefits will be based on the spell you choose, but a random loot element will be included as well. Each spell will cost the player experience levels but in turn allows the player to enchant armor, swords and tools with one or several random bonus attributes as well as making the items glow with a brilliant hue.

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

Enchanting basics
To enchant an item, craft an Enchantment Table, place it on the ground, right-click on it and drag an enchantable item from your inventory onto the square under the book icon. Three randomly chosen enchantments will appear on the menu on the right. The only thing you can know for sure about them is their level, which appears as a number; the alien text is random. You can take the item off and place it on the table again for a different set of enchantments. Once you choose an enchantment, it will be applied to your item, giving it a glow and one of the special powers detailed below, and you will lose a number of experience levels equal to the level of the enchantment. Enchantments cannot be undone and an item can only be enchanted once.

Whenever you place an eligible item on the table, the enchantment levels available are randomly generated for each slot using the formula below. The enchantment level is dependent upon the number of nearby bookshelves(capped at 30) and a "slot factor" of 0.50 for the topmost enchantment slot, 0.66 for the middle slot, and 1.00 for the bottom slot. (If b is 0, the second two random integers will always be zero.)

Enchantments
Enchantment names are randomly constructed from a long list of words. Three to five words are chosen from the list and appended to each other, creating the enchantment name. Any name can be chosen for any item. Note that the names are not actually saved with the item, they are only displayed in the Enchantment Table interface, albeit with the Standard Galactic Alphabet.

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

Jeb mentioned one possible enchantment would add a damage bonus against "undead mobs" when he polled his twitter feed for ideas of what to name the enchantment. He settled on "Smite".

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, and every part of armor of any material can be enchanted. According to Jeb, placing multiple bookshelves near an enchantment table will increase the potency of enchantments. Hoes, shears, fishing rods, bows and flint and steel are not enchantable.

When viewing the inventory of a 1.9 prelease 3 player in an NBT editor, all enchanted items have the same serialized enchantment values. Modifying these values seems to have no effect on the in-game elements. Additionally, replacing the same item in the enchanting square seems to generate a fresh set of random enchantments. It is not known if the names have any effect on the cost of the item, but as all enchantments share the same data values it is very likely that the enchantment generation system in the 1.9 prerelease 3 is simply a placeholder.

Starting with 1.9 prerelease 4, the values are used and enchantments work normally.

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

{| class="wikitable" ! EID ! style="width: 15em;" |Enchantable item ! Name ! Effect ! Max. Enchantment power ! On level up ! Notes ! colspan=7 |

Armor Enchantments
! 0 ! 1 ! 2 ! 3 ! 4 ! 5 ! 6 ! colspan=7 |
 * - align="center"
 * Protection
 * Converts environmental damage to armor damage
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Fire Protection, Blast Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Fire Protection, Blast Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Fire Protection
 * Protection against fire
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Blast Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Blast Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Feather Falling
 * Less fall damage
 * IV
 * +1 to reduction of falling damage (half a heart)
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Blast Protection
 * Protection against explosions
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Fire Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Fire Protection, or Projectile Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Projectile Protection
 * Protection against projectile entities (e.g. arrows)
 * IV
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Fire Protection, or Blast Protection
 * - align="center"
 * Armor with this enchantment cannot recieve Protection, Fire Protection, or Blast Protection
 * - 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

Weapon Enchantments
! 16 ! 17 ! 18 ! 19 ! 20 ! 21 ! colspan=7 |
 * - align="center"
 * Sharpness
 * Extra damage to mobs
 * V
 * 0.5-1 heart extra damage per level
 * A Sword with this enchantment cannot recieve Smite or Bane of Arthropods
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Smite
 * Extra damage to zombies, zombie pigmen and skeletons
 * V
 * 0.75-1.5 hearts extra damage per level
 * A Sword with this enchantment cannot recieve Sharpness or Bane of Arthropods
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Bane of Arthropods
 * Extra damage to spiders, cave spiders and silverfish
 * V
 * 0.75-1.5 hearts extra damage per level
 * A Sword with this enchantment cannot recieve Sharpness or Smite
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Knockback
 * Knocks mob and players backwards upon hit
 * II
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Fire Aspect
 * Lights mobs on fire
 * II
 * Will cook meat if mob is killed while it is on fire.
 * - align="center"
 * Will cook meat if mob is killed while it is on fire.
 * - align="center"
 * Looting
 * Mobs have a chance to drop more loot
 * III
 * +1 to max loot drop
 * +1 to max loot drop

Tool Enchantments
! 32 ! 33 ! 34 ! 35
 * - align="center"
 * Efficiency
 * Faster resource gathering while in use
 * V
 * +10% mining speed
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * 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, Mycelium, Grass, Double Slabs, Ice and Huge Mushrooms. (Regardless of the tool used)
 * - align="center"
 * Allows the collection of normally unobtainable blocks such as Ores, Mycelium, Grass, Double Slabs, Ice and Huge Mushrooms. (Regardless of the tool used)
 * - align="center"
 * Unbreaking
 * Sometimes, the tool's durability will not be spent when the tool is used
 * III
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * - align="center"
 * Fortune
 * Can multiply the drop rate of items from blocks
 * III
 * I: 30% * 2 (30% more)
 * I: 30% * 2 (30% more)

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

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


 * Only applies to item drops. When used on Wheat, only the Seeds' drop rate is affected. Increases the chance for Gravel to drop Flint instead of itself, up to 100% at III.
 * }

How Enchantments Are Chosen
"Enchantment level" is the cost of the enchantment in experience levels (the green number on the button). "Enchantment power" is the strength of the particular enchantment. For example, "Sharpness IV" has power 4. The enchantment algorithm uses a three-step process.

Step One - Applying modifiers to the enchantment level
The first thing that Minecraft does is apply two modifiers to the base enchantment level. Each modifier is restricted to a certain range, with numbers close to the middle of the range more common than those near the ends.

The first modifier is based on the item's "enchantability," which depends on the material and the type of the item (see the table below). Minecraft picks a number between 0 and the enchantability (with enchantability / 2 (divided by two) the most probable result - half way between zero and the enchantability), then adds that number plus one to the enchantment level.

Next, Minecraft picks a value between 0.75 and 1.25. The modified enchantment level is multiplied by this value (so it could increase or decrease by up to 25%) and then rounded to the nearest integer.

Step Two - Find possible enchantments
Now, based on the modified level, Minecraft makes a list of all enchantment types that can be applied to the target item along with the power that each enchantment will have.

The power of each enchantment type is determined by the level and the values in the table below. For each power value of an enchantment type, there is a minimum and maximum level that can produce the enchantment at that power. If the modified enchantment level is within the range, then the enchantment will be assigned that power. If the level is within two overlapping ranges for the same enchantment type, the higher power value is used.

Note: that extremely high modified enchantment levels can fall outside the ranges of all valid enchantments for the item. If this happens, the item is left unenchanted, but you are not charged any experience levels and can try enchanting it again.

Step Three - Select a set of enchantments from the list
Now that it's got a list of the possible enchantments for the item, Minecraft has to pick some of them that will actually be applied.

You always get at least one enchantment. The first enchantment is picked from a list of statistical "weights" - the enchantment with the higher weight has a higher chance of being selected.

After the first element is selected, there is a chance of receiving more, based on this algorithm:

Divide the modified level in half, rounded down. (This does not affect the possible enchantments themselves, because they were all pre-calculated in Step Two.) With probability (modified level + 1) / 50, keep going. Otherwise, stop picking bonus enchantments. Remove from the list of possible enchantments anything that conflicts with previously-chosen enchantments. Pick one enchantment from the remaining possible enchantments (based on the weights, as before) and apply it to the item. Repeat from step 1.

Conflicting Enchantments
Some enchantment conflict with other enchantments and thus both can't be enchanted into the same item, Effectively taking down the possibility for one to get an overpowered weapon.

The rules for enchantment conflicts are:
 * Every enchantment conflicts with itself. (So you can't get a weapon with two copies of the Efficiency enchantment.)
 * All protection enchantments conflict with each other, so an item can only have one at a time. (In the code, Feather Fall is implemented as *A protection enchantment, but it doesn't conflict with the others.)
 * All damage enchantments (Sharpness, Smite, and Bane of Arthropods) conflict with each other.

Standard Galactic Alphabet
The enchantments are written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet which is a simple alphabet substitution code used in the Commander Keen series of computer games (see that page for the code key). However, if you want to decode the names more quickly you can replace  in   (or in   on a Mac) with the.

There is something that may help you decode the language: Note: Decoding the alphabet will allow a player to read the enchantment phrases in his or her native language, although these phrases remain arbitrary, as of client version 1.9pre5.

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. Enchanted items also cause the hotbar to become semi-transparent whilst they are the selected item. The hotbar will revert to its opaque format when you select a new 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 armour 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, although extremely rare on enchantments below level 20.

Bugs

 * Enchantments are disabled/do not work in Beta 1.9 Pre-release 3's SMP. If a player attempts to enchant an item, it will appear enchanted for the client, but will update with the unenchanted status once the player logs out and then back in again.
 * In Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4 if a character in Creative mode picks up a enchanted item and drops it the item will become unenchanted.
 * In Beta 1.9 Pre-release 4 it's possible to get Silk Touch and Fortune on the same tool. (It's a bug! --Jeb 09:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)) ( [] )
 * Using the "Silk Touch" enchantment, it is possible to obtain either Redstone Ore or Glowing Redstone Ore, depending on the block's state when broken. These are different blocks and do not stack, but appear to be identical in the user's inventory.
 * TNT drops two TNT when destroyed by an item with Silk Touch.
 * Anything enchanted in 1.9 Pre-release 3 (if still enchanted) will have a random enchantment when loaded into 1.9 Pre-release 4.
 * If, in SSP, there are enchanted items in a chest which gets destroyed, they become unenchanted.
 * In Pre-release 4 SMP, an enchanted sword may refuse to block when right-clicking. This can be fixed by restarting the server.
 * Mining gravel with a tool with Fortune IV or greater causes the game to crash.
 * When a normally unobtainable block is mined using the Silk Touch enchantment, the tile entity of the block is not kept. Therefore when a mob spawner is picked up, (was possible in pre-4, but was removed in pre-5) it will revert to a pig spawner.