Craft Magic Arms question

[swordsmasher]

One of my player's is trying to craft some magic weapons, and he wants to add a special ability to the weapon. my question is this; to add special abilities to weapons and armor, what level does a character have to be? Is it the CL listed under the special abilities description, or is it the straight up +1 per three caster levels thing?

 

[Staffan]

Caster level is, in itself, irrelevant. The caster level listed on the item is just the average caster level on a randomly found item. What matters are the prerequisites.

For example, a flaming weapon requires flame blade, flame strike, or fireball. That means you need to be a 3rd level druid (upped to 5th because the Craft Magic Arms & Armor prereq - though you could technically be a Bard 5/Druid 3), 9th level cleric, 5th level wizard, or 6th level sorcerer to make one. Or you could buy a number of scrolls of the above spells and make it with those, or with a wand.

 

[Tatsukun]

One more way, you can have someone else supply the spell.

But as has been said, your CL doesn't effect anything (or at least shouldn't). There is a fairly large battle raging over this very issue (minimum required caster levels) between various developers. Some say the CL listed in the DMG IS a requirement, some say it ISN'T.

Everyone agrees that you must have a CL of three times the +X bonus you want to add, because that is explicitly listed in the entry. But the rest, who knows…

-Tatsu