Another game I have dedicated numerous hours to is Minecraft, a sandbox survival game that has nearly infinite possibilities. As I’ve put in hundreds of hours however, I realized that some of the game’s current systems could do with some touching up and/or reworking, with one of those systems including the enchanting system.
What is Enchanting?
Enchanting is a game system present in Minecraft that allows players to upgrade their weapons and imbue them with special effects. For example, swords can be enchanted to deal more damage, light enemies on fire, or provide even more loot drops when defeating an enemy. As of now, harvesting tools, weapons, and armor can be enchanted using the enchanting table. Currently, the user has three options to select from, where they get to know one of the enchantments that will be applied when choosing. In addition, it costs lapis lazuli to perform the action of enchanting the item.
This functionality of the enchanting table is where the unique gameplay starts and ends, below however, are potential suggestions as to how the enchanting system could be added onto. These features enables more uses for other items, as well as adds more depth into the enchanting process itself.
Adding Amethyst
Amethyst shards currently have limited uses in the game, being the spyglass & tinted glass, as long as you don’t count amethyst blocks themselves. Both of the unique items have to do with vision in some way, as spyglasses allow the players to zoom in, and tinted glass prevents light from passing through it. Amethyst could play similar role in enchanting, providing the opportunity to clarify your enchantment options.
Using an amethyst shard would reveal one random enchantment from the three available options. Given that higher level options can have multiple enchantments each, having the ability to reveal other enchantments present in that option can allow the player to make more informed decisions when enchanting. Revealed enchantments would have a slight purple hue to their text given the context of amethyst, and once revealed, they cannot be re-revealed. This allows you to inevitably view every enchantment for all three options if you so desire.
Integrating Prismarine
Another gemstone / crystal material is the prismarine crystal. These are primarily used to craft the prismarine lantern, an oceanic themed light source. In the use of enchanting however, these could be used to reset the options presented to the player if they don’t care for the three current choices. Currently, you can reset enchantment options by enchanting any other item in the table, which refreshes all of the other choices for any other gear piece. While this is nice, it can feel a bit off to be able to reroll my sword enchantments by enchanting a pair of boots.
To reroll enchantments on a gear piece, you’d now need to either enchant the item and use a grindstone to remove the enchantments, or reroll the enchantments using prismarine crystals. Each reroll would require three crystals, as one per enchantment option makes sense.
Reworking Rerolls
For prismarine to work, rerolling enchantments on gear & equipment would also need to be modified. This could be integrated by categorizing enchanting items and further by tiers. For example, you can only reset your item if it’s a similar item type and tier of item. Item types would include the following:
| Type | Item(s) |
| Armor | Helmet, Chestplate, Leggings, Boots, Elytra, Shield |
| Tools | Pickaxe, Shovel, Hoe, Shears, Flint & Steel |
| Weapons | Sword, Axe, Bow, Crossbow |
Along with item types, the enchanted item would also need to match the tier of the item present, that being wood, stone, etc. Three tiers would be present, with the materials being the following:
| Tier | Material(s) |
| 1 | Wood, Leather, Stone, Chainmail |
| 2 | Copper, Iron, Gold |
| 3 | Diamond, Netherite |
Utilizing Echo Shards
Players have the opportunity to increase their enchantment levels and quality by adding bookshelves around their enchanting table. This caps out at 15 bookshelves for a maximum of a level 30 enchantment, but what if there was a way to go beyond this limit, and add additional enchantments, and even treasure-based enchantments, such as mending, to equipment? Echo shards can serve this purpose, given their rarity and limited functionality. Echo shards only have one current purpose, used to craft a recovery compass. This compass points to the last location you had died at, and while that can be useful, it is obsolete in a gamemode like hardcore mode. With the implementation in enchanting, an echo shard can increase the power of one of the enchantment options once.
This could increase the tier of an existing enchantment on the item, or add an additional enchantment, including treasure enchantments, which includes frost walker, mending, soul speed, swift sneak, and wind burst. To balance this however, there would be a chance to also tie a curse to the enchantment, forcing the player to weigh the benefits and potential drawbacks. While there are only two curses present in the game as of now, there would need to be other curses to offer trade-offs in power. Maybe your armor can have more protection, but it reduces your movement speed by a bit, etc.
