What happens when you enchant an item in Minecraft?

To enchant an item, you need to gain experience levels. The more levels you have, the stronger the enchantments you can do, but you won’t know exactly what you’re getting until after it’s done!

You can enchant all kinds of armour, swords, bows and tools including shears, fishing rods and flint-and-steel.

Enchanting works by trading in experience levels (the green number above your toolbar) for enchantments. You get experience points (XP) in several ways, the main ones being killing mobs and from cooking or smelting things in furnaces.

You will need obsidian, two diamonds and a book (made from paper, which is made from sugar cane, and leather, for which you will have to kill a cow or some rabbits).

The final things you will need are an item to enchant, and some Lapis Lazuli – the blue ore that you can find when mining.

The number in green on the right is how many levels you need to have to be able to do the enchantment. However, doing the enchantment will not cost you all of those levels.

The top enchantment will cost you 1 level and 1 piece of Lapis Lazuli; the middle one will cost you 2 of each and you will need 3 levels and 3 pieces of Lapis lazuli for the bottom enchantment.

In this example, the middle enchantment says 13. I would need to have more than 13 levels to do this enchantment, but it would only actually cost me 2 levels (leaving me with 11 levels after I did the enchantment).

Place 1, 2, or 3 pieces of Lapis Lazuli in the slot and the enchantments you have enough levels to perform will light up. Choose your enchantment and click!

The mysterious characters can be decoded, but they are not helpful. If you mouse over the enchantments, you can see one of the enchantments you will get on your item. There may or may not be additional enchantments, but you will only find out after you perform the enchantment.

Generally, the more levels you need to do the enchantment, the better the enchantments you will get, and the more of them there will be.

If you don’t want any of the enchantments offered (perhaps you wanted to spend a particular number of levels), you will need to enchant a different type of item, or maybe a book, and then you will get a different set of 3 choices next time.

A basic Enchantment Table will only allow enchantments up to 8 levels. For more powerful enchantments, you will need to build bookshelves and place them near the enchantment table.

Each bookshelf increases the maximum available enchantment by 1 or 2 levels, up to a maximum of 30 levels (15 bookcases).

Bookshelves should be 2 blocks away from the table, on the same level or one higher. There must be nothing between the bookshelf and the table.

Instead of enchanting an item, you can enchant a book instead. The enchantment can be saved for later, and applied to an item using an Anvil.

However, you can combine two enchanted items, or add a second enchantment from an enchanted book, using an Anvil.

ENCHANTING! | Minecraft Basics 4

Enchanting equipment[]

Name	Icon	Usage
Enchanting Table	Used for enchanting items
Bookshelf	Each bookshelf (up to 15) increases the level of the enchantments given by the enchanting table
Lapis Lazuli	Required to power the enchanting table
Anvil	Used to combine enchanted items (tools, armor, weapons), add enchantments from books, or repair an enchanted item while preserving enchantments
Grindstone	Used to remove all non-curse enchantments on an item (returning a small amount of experience), and optionally repair an item (for no experience)
Enchanted book	Can be combined with another item through an anvil to add enchantments to the item

What Minecraft items can you enchant?

Enchantments can be applied to a huge number of items in Minecraft, but the broad set of item categories that you can enchant in Minecraft are as follows: armour, tools, weapons, and books.

Summary of enchantments[]See also:

Each enchantment in the table below includes attributes that are possible for the player to acquire legitimately in Survival mode. Other combinations are possible in creative mode or with cheats, mods, or third-party software.

Max Level: Maximum levels for enchantments vary, but the game can comprehend up to 32-bit integer values (−231 to 231−1). Exceeding this value results in an overflow, and eventually resets itself to 0.

Primary Items: The items that can receive the enchantment legitimately in Survival mode by using an enchanting table. Items of any material can be enchanted (some more easily than others – see Enchantment mechanics).

Secondary Items: Items that, in Survival mode, cannot receive the enchantment from an enchanting table but can from an enchanted book with an anvil.

Weight: Relative probability of the enchantment being offered.

↑ Treasure enchantments are those that cant be obtained using an enchantment table.

FAQ

What happens when you enchant something in Minecraft?

Do enchantments stay forever?

Is it better to enchant with books or table?