Enchanting Table

Enchanting Table turns experience levels and lapis lazuli into enchantments on tools, weapons, armor, and books. Each use presents three offers at once, and part of what an offer contains stays hidden until you pay for it, so enchanting is a gamble you buy into rather than a menu you pick from. Enchanting a book first is the way around that — an anvil moves the result onto whichever piece of gear you actually want, and a poor roll costs a book instead of a diamond pickaxe.

Offer strength depends entirely on your enchanting table setup. Bookshelves raise the level of the offers, but a shelf only counts when it sits one block away with an empty air gap between it and the table; a torch, slab, or chest dropped into that gap silently disconnects it. Fifteen bookshelves placed in that ring is the point where offers reach level 30, and shelves past that add nothing.

The runes floating over the book are what players call the enchanting table language. It is a letter-for-letter substitution alphabet, so the glyphs really do spell words — but the words come from a fixed list of nonsense phrases and say nothing about the enchantment on offer. Hover an offer to see the one enchantment it guarantees.

Some enchantments never appear at a table at all. Mending, Frost Walker, Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, Wind Burst, and the two curses are treasure enchantments that come from loot chests, trading, fishing, or bartering, each from its own short list of sources. Everything else the table can roll, and a grindstone strips an unwanted result back off, returning part of the levels you spent.