The Goblin Tinkerer is both one of the most important and infuriating NPCs in Terraria. Some call him a master of reforging, others say he’s nothing but a money-hungry troll.
Either way, if you want to bring the best out of your weapons, tools, and accessories, you’re going to be spending a lot of your hard-earned coins on his services.
Unfortunately, finding the Goblin Tinkerer isn’t especially intuitive. You’ll have to jump through a couple of hoops before he is able to show up at one of your NPC houses.
In order for the Goblin Tinkerer to appear in your Terraria world, you must first defeat a Goblin Army. After that, he’ll periodically spawn near you as a Bound Goblin when you’re in the Cavern layer of your world. Talk to him to free him, and then he’ll be able to respawn at an available NPC house.
Now that the necessary steps for finding the Goblin Tinkerer have been laid out, let’s go over how to successfully complete them.
How to Summon a Goblin Army in Terraria
Summoning a Goblin Army in Terraria can either be extremely easy or difficult and time-consuming, depending upon the materials you have on hand. If you already have access to 10 Tattered Cloths and 5 Wood of any type, you can simply craft a Goblin Battle Standard at a Loom and summon a Goblin Army at your leisure.
If this is your first Terraria world or you simply haven’t assembled the necessary materials in other worlds, you’ve still got a couple options available to you.
The first is to get the materials for a Goblin Battle Standard. To do this, you can farm some Goblin Scouts in the easternmost or westernmost 6th of your world. Each is guaranteed to drop 1 or 2 Tattered Cloth, but they’re a relatively rare enemy. To offset their low spawn rate, you might consider taking some Battle Potions and Water Candles with you while farming.
Your second option is to try and get a Goblin Army to spawn as a natural event in your world. In order for this to happen, you must meet the following criteria:
- At least 1 player on the server must have at least 200 Health (they’ve used at least 5 Life Crystals)
- At least 1 Shadow Orb or Crimson Heart in the world must have been destroyed (can be done with any hammer or with explosives)
Goblin Invasions only occur during the day (4:30 AM – 7:30 PM), and are preceded by the message “A goblin army is approaching from the east/west!“. Once you see the message “A goblin army has arrived!“, the Goblin Army has begun spawning near your world’s original spawn point.
The first wave will come from the listed direction in the first message, but subsequent waves can spawn from either the left or right. Players on your server will need to defeat 80 goblins + 40 for every player that has at least 200 health on the server, totaling 120 for a single player, 160 for 2 players, 200 for 3 players, and so on.
Progress displays in a yellow bar in the lower right corner of your screen, and when you have defeated the Goblin Invasion, you’ll see the message “A goblin army has been defeated!” in the lower left corner of your screen. From there, you can move on to the next step – finding the Bound Goblin.
What Is the Easiest Way to Find the Goblin Tinkerer?
To easily find the Goblin Tinkerer, who shows up as the Bound Goblin, I recommend 5 things:
- Not being in Hardmode (optional, but the enemies aren’t as deadly)
- Go to the Cavern layer of your world (carrying a Depth Meter or one of its evolutions makes it easy to see where this layer starts and ends)
- Bring a Lifeform Analyzer or one of its evolutions to see when a Bound Goblin is nearby
- Bring a Rod of Discord so you can quickly teleport to open stretches of Cavern
- Drink a Hunter Potion while searching for the Bound Goblin to make him easier to spot
Going to the Cavern layer of your world is the only thing you’re required to do to find the Bound Goblin, as he’ll periodically spawn near you while you’re there, and will despawn if you get too far away from where he appears.
The rest of these suggestions just make getting around and finding the Bound Goblin easier, and reduce the odds that monsters will kill him before you can talk to and free him.
Once you have freed the Bound Goblin, he is able to respawn at an empty NPC house, though you can also buy items or use his Reforge service immediately after freeing him as well.
What Does the Goblin Tinkerer Sell?
The Goblin Tinkerer sells the following items:
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Rocket Boots | 5 Gold |
| Ruler | 10 Silver* |
| Tinkerer’s Workshop | 10 Gold |
| Grappling Hook | 2 Gold |
| Toolbelt | 10 Gold |
| Spiky Ball | 80 Copper |
| Pylon | 10 Gold** |
**The type of Pylon sold depends on the biome the Goblin Tinkerer is in and is only sold if he is happy enough.
While most of these items will be quite useful during various parts of the game, the most important one is the Tinkerer’s Workshop. This crafting station lets you combine multiple accessories into single items, usually granting you the full effects of all combined items.
With a limited number of available accessory slots, the Tinkerer’s Workshop becomes increasingly important the further into the game you get, and opens up a ton of space once you’re able to complete large crafting trees for items like the Cell Phone, the Ankh Shield, and the Terraspark Boots.
The other service the Goblin Tinkerer offers is the ability to Reforge items. Weapons, tools, and accessories can all be reforged, and the cost to reforge an item is 1/3 its current value, which will usually change based on its existing modifier.
This makes reforging an item with a negative modifier relatively inexpensive, but reforging from a good modifier to a great one will usually cost you.
While you can offset this cost by keeping the Goblin Tinkerer happy or by equipping a Discount Card/Greedy Ring, the modifier you receive from reforging is random, so prepare to sink a lot of Platinum into getting the modifiers you want for your gear.
How Do I Make the Goblin Tinkerer Happy?
You can do the following things to make the Goblin Tinkerer happy and lower his prices:
- Place his house in the Underground, Cavern, or Underworld biomes, which he likes
- Talk to him when he is within 25 tiles of the Mechanic, who he loves, and/or the Princess and Dye Trader, who he likes
- Do not place his house in a Jungle biome, which he dislikes
- Do not talk to him when he is near the Stylist (who he hates) and/or the Clothier, who he dislikes
At his happiest, the Goblin Tinkerer’s prices can be as low as 75% of their original value; very worthwhile if you plan to do a lot of reforging! At his unhappiest, prices can be 150% of their original value, and if you talk to him while he’s homeless, or in the Corruption, Crimson, or Dungeon biomes, his prices will soar to 1000% of their original value.
How Important Is the Goblin NPC?
The Tinkerer offers some very important items in the game, and having those items an make your life much easier. The Goblin Tinkerer in Terraria is one that you want in your settlement and once you know how to go about making him happy, you’ll be in a great spot for the rest of your game.
So in short, keep the Goblin Tinkerer happy, and he’ll only mostly empty your wallet in return.
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Braden is a founder of Assorted Meeples and has been a gamer & writer with a vivid imagination all his life. Don’t believe us? Check out his excitement when meeting Goosebumps author R.L. Stine as a kid! An avid Magic: The Gathering spellslinger for over 15 years, you can always convince him to shuffle up for a game (or three!) of Commander.