How to Reduce Anvil XP Costs When Combining Items Repeatedly

Why Costs Explode in Vanilla

In vanilla, every time you work an item at an anvil, the "prior work penalty" grows. Combine a sword with books a few times and the cost becomes impossible. Easy Anvils softens this scaling so multi-step projects stay affordable.

Working Efficiently

1. Gather all your materials first: the base item, the books or items you want to merge, and enough XP levels.

2. Open the anvil and place the base item on the left.

3. Add one book or item at a time rather than trying to cram everything into a single operation — the mod's reduced scaling makes sequential combines cheaper than vanilla would allow.

4. Watch the XP cost preview in the anvil GUI. If it's still too high, close the interface; your items stay put thanks to the persistent storage.

5. Come back with more XP and continue.

Additional Cost Savers

• Renaming items at an anvil no longer damages the anvil, so you can freely rename gear without worrying about wear.
• Because anvils can be repaired with iron blocks, you can keep using the same anvil for long enchanting projects instead of crafting replacements.
• Plan your enchantment order: put the rarest or most expensive enchantment on last if you want to minimize the number of operations on the final item.
• Keep a stash of XP bottles or a mob farm nearby so you can top up between combines.