Enchanting

Enchanting is a game mechanic that involves using an Enchantment Table to add special bonuses to tools, weapons or armor.

To enchant an item, you need the required experience level for the enchantment and an Enchantment Table. Each spell costs 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.

Currently, this is the only use for your earned experience levels so dont be afraid to spend them.

What can I enchant?
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.

How do I enchant something?
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 foreign text is random. You can take the item off and place it on the table again for a different set of enchantments.

You can increase the range of the enchantment levels by surrounding your enchanting table with bookshelves. A table by itself will only enchant up to a maximum level of 5. This can be increased to level 50 if 30 bookshelves are arranged in a certain pattern around the enchanting table.

What are the enchantments?
There are three basic categories for enchantments. Armor, weapons and tools.

Armor enchantments
Protection - Converts environmental damage to armor damage

Fire Protection - Protection against fire damage

Feather Falling - Less fall damage (boots only)

Blast Protection - Protection against explosions

Projectile Protection - Protection against projectile entities (e.g. arrows)

Respiration - Decreases the rate of air loss underwater; increases time between damage while suffocating (helmets only)

Aqua Affinity - Increases underwater mining rate (helmet only)

Weapon enchantments
Sharpness - Extra damage

Smite - Extra damage to zombies, zombie pigmen and skeletons

Bane of Arthropods - Extra damage to spiders, cave spiders and silverfish

Knockback - Knocks mobs and players backwards upon hit

Fire Aspect - Lights mobs on fire

Looting - Mobs have a chance to drop more loot

Power - Extra damage (bows only)

Punch - Knockback effect on mobs (bows only)

Flame - Sets arrows and mobs on fire (bows only)

Infinity - Gives infinite shots with a single arrow (bows only)

Tool Enchantments
Efficiency - Faster resource gathering while in use

Silk Touch - Blocks mined will drop themselves, even if it should drop something else (e.g. Stone will drop stone, not Cobblestone)

Unbreaking - At each use, there's a chance the tool's durability will not decrease.

Fortune - Can multiply the drop rate of items from blocks