25% OFF First Invoice

Code at Checkout APEX25

Category - Enchanting in Minecraft

Overview

Despite how Minecraft looks, the game actually has some minor RPG elements. One way that the game attempts to make you feel like you are powering up your character is with enchanting. You can use enchanting to make items in Minecraft stronger, or give them unique properties. If you like how your current armor looks, but it isn’t quite powerful enough to protect you from the enemies you are encountering, you can always boost its durability with enchantments. If you would like a sword that can dish out more damage and inflict special effects in new and exciting ways, then you may want to try enchanting it.

This can be a fairly complex process, and there are a few different ways to enchant, so we are going to layout this mechanic for you and walk you through how to do it step by step.

Enchanting in Minecraft

What to Enchant

You can only enchant items that you carry around with you and use as a permanent part of your inventory. That would be tools, weapons, and armor. You can’t enchant fruits or other consumable items- only those that have multiple uses and that would last you for a while. Enchanting an item is meant to make it more useful to you, and it can be a time-consuming process that requires some sacrifice on your part, whether it is due to the resources you have to give up creating an enchantment or the effort you have to go through to put an enchantment into effect. So, it doesn’t make much sense to be able to enchant consumable items.

Enchanting Methods

There are a few ways that you can create an enchantment for a given item.

The easiest way is to simply receive an enchanted item. You can get enchanted items from villagers, especially if you are willing to part with some emeralds. When fishing, there is a chance that you could discover an enchanted item. You may also find them in chests located in the world. Finally, if you kill an enemy that has an enchanted weapon, then there is a chance that you could obtain their enchanted item.

You can make enchanted items as well, and that’s what we’re going to focus on for this article. Let’s look at those few ways that you can craft enchanted items, as Minecraft gives you more options than most games do.

If you have an unenchanted item, you can take it to an enchantment table and use experience points and lapis lazuli to enchant it. This won’t work on items that already have some enchantment on them. This is probably the simplest way to get an enchanted item early on in the game, as it won’t require you to do as much exploring and it won’t rely on chance so much as the other ways do.

If you use an anvil, you can take enchanted items and combine them to create a new item with both enchantments on it. This requires you to have multiple enchanted items, though, which is probably only going to happen after you have been playing the game for a long time.

You can also use an anvil to combine an item (tool, weapon or armor) with an enchanted book. You will need to use some experience points to create the enchantment, though. If you are playing in Creative mode, though, then you won’t need to use any experience points.

enchanting table
anvil
mineshaft chest

You can also cheat to create your enchantment. If you use console command “/enchant” you can force the enchantment process to happen without meeting any of the other requirements. Still, even with using cheats, you are restricted to only enchanting tools, weapons, and armor.

Create an Enchanting Table

Most people will be using enchantment tables to create an enchanted item, so we want to show you how to make one. If you are playing in Creative mode, you can find the enchantment table already in your inventory. Depending on the version of the game you are playing, it could be listed under Miscellaneous, Decorations or Items.

enchanting table crafting recipe

You’ll need a book, four obsidians and two diamonds to create an enchanting table. You also have to have a crafting table, which allows you to use a 3×3 grid in the crafting menu. Once you stand at the crafting table, you will be able to open up the grid large enough in the crafting menu to make the enchanting table. We cover how to make a crafting table in another article, so please refer to that if you need help with the basic crafting mechanics.

You’ll have to put the items onto the crafting grid in the right order for this to work. Otherwise, you won’t be able to craft anything at all.

Put the book on top, in a row of the grid all by itself. The second row should consist of one diamond, one obsidian, and one more diamond, in that order. The third row should be all obsidian. Then, the item will appear, and you just need to move it over to the inventory screen to start using it.

Using the Enchantment Table

We have walked you through some of the basic concepts behind enchanting items, but let’s look now at how to put the enchanting table into action. You’ll have to place it in the game world to actually use it. We suggest finding a nice, clear area that you can work in safety from the rest of the world. If you are playing Creative mode, then that isn’t a problem, but if you play any mode with enemies, you will want to secure your enchanting table someplace indoors, preferably.

Using the Enchantment Table

You can put your table anywhere in the game world you want, but you also want to give it plenty of space so that you can surround it with bookshelves. You should place bookshelves all around it, because the kinds of enchantments you can make are limited to what enchantment books you available to you. Once you get some enchantment books, you will want to place them on the bookshelves to be used whenever you need them. This opens up your inventory a bit more and gives you more space to work with, and it places the enchantment books right where you will need them- next to the enchanting table.

You can place up to 15 bookshelves around your enchantment table. The game will recognize those available enchantments. If you have more than that nearby, you won’t be able to access them, because the game only recognizes the first 15 available enchantments. If you want to store more enchantments, then we suggest creating another enchanting table and filling that with bookshelves as well, and use it as your overflow table.

Enchanting Items with the Table

Once you have all the enchanting equipment in place, actually putting it to use to enchant an item is fairly simple. You’ll need to decide what you want to enchant- be it a sword, bow, boots, book or some other item. Remer that it is only tools, weapons and armor that you can enchant. You also want to enchant items that you plan to use and that would benefit from an enchantment. You don’t want to waste your enchantment or put it on an item where it would not make sense. There are few restrictions on how you can enchant, so make sure that the enchantment you use make sense to you and how you play the game.

enchanting table UI

To start enchanting, just walk over to the enchanting table and open the enchantment table from your inventory. This opens the enchanting menu. You will see two boxes on the left and three slots on the right. The boxes are for the item you wish to enchant and the lapis lazuli. If you are using Creative Mode, you won’t need the lapis lazuli. Otherwise, you need one to three of them to make the magic happen. A sword, for example, takes three lapis lazuli.

The slots on the enchanting menu are for the enchantment you are going to use. Each enchantment you attempt to use on your item will be locked behind a certain experience level. You may have an enchantment you want to use, but if you don’t have the necessary experience level, then you won’t be able to use it. As you might expect, the more experience points required for an enchantment, the more powerful and useful that enchantment will be.

If you want to use a specific enchantment but are not powerful enough yet, then just keep playing the game and learning experience. You can always come back to the enchantment table later when you are ready and use that enchantment on the item of your choice.

Before you go to the enchanting table to magically upgrade an item, be sure you have an item that you want to enchant. If you don’t like the enchantment you have placed on an item, then you can only remove it by repairing the item. You would use two of the same item to do this, and one of them will disappear afterward, but the enchantment will be gone. So, you’ll want to make sure that you want that enchantment removed before you go through this process.