Junk Tinker does two things. The first allows you to craft level 0 items very cheaply, but they are only useful for your own use. Unfortunately,crafting takes at least 4 days, and there are not a lot of level 0 items where you can save much money using Junk Tinker over simply Earning Income. Yes, crafting a Tower Shield or a Spyglass would save you some cash, but how often will you need to do that?
The other benefit is that it can cut one day off of crafting. If you are planning to so a lot of crafting, this can save you money over time. It basically gives you one free day to Earn Income after each crafting session.
In general, I think the feat is more thematic than it is mechanically useful. I love the idea of a Goblin carrying around all sorts of stuff re-purposed into sketchy tools. But for utility, I don't think the typical fighter will get a lot out of it.
Fire Resistance from the Charhide heritage is probably better mechanically. I chose Tailed Goblin from the Lost Omens Character Guide for my Champion, for the climbing and tripping.
Ignore the last sentence in my last post. Of course Junk Tinker is a feat, not a heritage.
I rather like Junk for uncommon or semi rare stuff?
like shurikens you can't buy 'em all over the place but you can spend a few weeks making quite a few cheap scrap-shards that you can use, abuse, and don't w orry about losing much.Also could make a stock of junk shields to break and toss depending on bulk status.
I think those area all lv 0 anyway.
I do wish the restriction was "your level" not level 0.
In that sense, JT can be a fun and flavorful solution to certain issues a given build might have.
But thinking more about shields: If you are planning to craft lots of shields, you re likely planning to be a reasonably good crafter. And if you are, it is just going to be easier to fix shields between fights than cart around large numbers of them, especially as you get out of the initial levels and are wanting better shields.