[3.5] Help With Walker in the Waste

[Ballista]

Well I had a strong conviction to play play this build, seeing that this will probably the only desert campaign I will see in a while. Walker in the Waste is a Prestige Class found in Sandstorm nice bonuses in deserts and such.

I, however, have no idea where to go with this class... I really don't want to go full casting, but if it's all that it's good for, I stick with it anyway. Maybe a gish, the Desiccating Touch ability seems pretty useful for close quarter combat, but I'm still fairly new at trying to optimize so I may be completely wrong in that regard.

I wanted to get into the class as early as possible, and I found an early entrance trick (lets me enter the class at level 2 :smalltongue:),
We are starting off at level 1 and I am currently:

Human Generic Spellcaster 1
Ability Scores (yet to be sorted) 14 10 14 13 15 18
Feats - Heat Endurance, Precocious Apprentice (Desiccate), Southern Magician


I want to take the class all the way up to its capstone but otherwise, I have no other requests. The DM has authorized all books except Tome of Battle (for obvious reasons that nobody understands...)

So... TLDR help me build a Walker in the Waste that isn't just another caster
Thanks again for your help guys :smallbiggrin:

[Jeff the Green]

:smallconfused: Did you get this from one of my posts? If so, I'm torn between shame and pride. Be careful that you don't rip apart your DM's campaign.

Anyway, the 18 needs to go into Charisma, obviously. Unless you're going to go into Sacred Exorcist (which would have alignment issues) or a pseudo Sorcadin build, gishing will be hard. Cleric WitWs can make up for the low BAB with DMM Persisted Divine Might, but you won't be able to get turn undead.

There are only two decent ways I can see gishing. The first is grabbing Paladin of Tyrrany 3 for rebuking, then grabbing DMM Persist and persisting Divine Might. Put something on your weapon that requires a save (like... bladeweave? I'm sure others have better ideas), because anyone within 10 feet of you has a -4 penalty to all saves. (Better yet, use a Blade of Pain and Fear :smallamused:.)

You'll only ever get 15th level casting (7th level spells) this way, though. You could also dip Cleric 1 instead and get 8th level spells, but I like PoT better.

The other is taking the Virtuoso prestige class (CAdv). That will give you Bardic Music, which lets you take Snowflake War Dance. Go around with a scimitar and find a source of bonus damage. This is probably mechanically inferior. Really, by going gish you're not benefiting much from the early entry.

For a Gish, I'd go Str 15, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 18. Bump Str to 16 at 4th level and put the rest into Cha.

Personally, I'd go with a caster instead. You want to put that 10 into Con because otherwise you're wasting the opportunity to obviate that bad roll. A Gish likes highish HP, and you just won't have it until 11th level.

If you go caster, consider starting at middle age or later. So, say Old Age. You'd have Str 10, Dex 11, Con 7, Int 16, Wis 17, Cha 20 after age bonuses/penalties. Put all your increases into Cha.

One interesting PrC option would be Wild Mage (CA). You'll want Practiced Caster anyway since you lose 2 caster levels. The first Wild Mage level gives you +1 spell casting level, but decreases your CL by 3. Then, whenever you cast a spell, your CL is increased by 1d6. This ends up averaging out, but with Practiced Caster you'll have a CL of Level - 3 (Wild Mage) - 2 (WitW) + 4 (Practiced Caster) + 1d6 = Level - 1 + 1d6. So a range of level...level + 5.

Also, you already have an Aura of Dispair; you can leverage this into a nasty fear build. Grab Dread Witch after you become a Dry Lich. Check out this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) handbook for more ideas. I like (again) Blade of Pain and Fear for this. Put an (invisible) Evard's Black Tentacles behind them. :smallamused:

[Rejusu]

I don't think it makes for a very good Gish personally. It strikes me as more of a minion master. What with it's golems and mummies and all. Also what are these obvious reasons that nobody understands for banning ToB?

[Zerter]

Southern Magician/Precocious Apprentice is really cheesy and I would think twice about playing with a DM that allows it.

I don't think you really appreciate this class enough given "but if it's all that it's good for", you're gonna be playing a class with godly amount of HPs, strong all-around defenses and tons of immunities. You can play a pure spellcaster and still easily kick any gish's ass in melee combat.

You will want to play a spellcaster, dump constitution and max charisma. I would go for cloistered cleric and max wisdom next.

Your best friends include:

A monk's belt
The spellstitched template
Two levels of Mystic Wanderer
The close-quarter fighting feat
Hummingbird familiar playing bagpipes of the damned
Otyugh hole
Bag containing 10 undead rats you keep close at all times
Reliquary holy symbol
Strand of prayer beads

I've played Walker in the Waste up to level 17 (lesser aasimar), it was awesome, he had 58 AC, 286 HP and my build centered around covering every weakness he had because I was paranoid a glass cannon party member would try to backstab me.

Up to the point where you become a Dry Lich your role is basically to survive though.

[Ballista]

:smallconfused: Did you get this from one of my posts? If so, I'm torn between shame and pride. Be careful that you don't rip apart your DM's campaign.

The main reason for going gish was me trying not to be overpowered and absoltetly de-railing the campaign, this is the DM's first campaign and I was trying to be a bit underwhelming so he wouldn't have to worry about any Thought Bottle and Pun-Pun abuse :smallyuk:. And yes I did find the early entry from one of your posts... :smallbiggrin:


I don't think it makes for a very good Gish personally. It strikes me as more of a minion master.

The problem is that I have no idea how salt mummy creation works, do I just shove some salt into a dead body and it'll rise up as my mindless minion? Sand Golem is nice to have but I think that by level 14, I won't be really needing it as I'll probably have all the Dry Lich immunities and buffs to help with the frail character. I guess I could go for a necromancer build, but I'd have to drop the early entrance and stick with Cloistered Cleric through.


Also what are these obvious reasons that nobody understands for banning ToB?

I'm just referring to the fact that almost everyone that has little experience DMing bans this book for no apparent reason, with the justification being: "It's overpowered." I've personally never looked at the book so I can't know what the DM was thinking.


Southern Magician/Precocious Apprentice is really cheesy and I would think twice about playing with a DM that allows it.


I don't see anything that bad about it besides the early entry thing, but if there is something cheesy that I can do with it, please don't tell me :smallsmile:.

[Rejusu]

The problem is that I have no idea how salt mummy creation works, do I just shove some salt into a dead body and it'll rise up as my mindless minion? Sand Golem is nice to have but I think that by level 14, I won't be really needing it as I'll probably have all the Dry Lich immunities and buffs to help with the frail character. I guess I could go for a necromancer build, but I'd have to drop the early entrance and stick with Cloistered Cleric through.

Remember you have to survive until then though. The issue you've got is that as a Gish you'll want enough CON so you have enough HP to survive as a front line fighter. Since you've only got a D6 (though it could be worse, could be a D4) hit die you're going to need a strong CON score to make up for that. But since you become undead at 11th level putting a strong stat into CON is wasteful. Plus you only have poor BAB which makes it really hard to gish. I know it's probably possible but I wouldn't consider gishing with anything less than 3/4 BAB. And to top it off your only good save is will.

You can try and make it work as a gish, but I wouldn't recommend it. Can't you make the early entry cheese work with Cleric though? I seemed to remember reading something about it being workable.


I'm just referring to the fact that almost everyone that has little experience DMing bans this book for no apparent reason, with the justification being: "It's overpowered." I've personally never looked at the book so I can't know what the DM was thinking.

Oh, those kind of reasons. Tell your DM that if he's going to start banning books for being unbalanced he should start with the players handbook. ToB is actually very balanced if you ignore Iron Heart Surge.


I don't see anything that bad about it besides the early entry thing, but if there is something cheesy that I can do with it, please don't tell me :smallsmile:.

I'm pretty sure the "early entry" is the cheesy part. You'll be a Dry Lich with 11 class levels by ECL 11. Think about that for a moment.

[Yorrin]

Cleric->WitW is my favorite class/PrC in the game. It does function best as a full caster with strong minion master overtones, but its desiccating touch does give it a handy (and concealed!) melee weapon. You can basically do all the usual CoDzilla stuff, but without having to worry about a weapon (and in fact your weapon is a touch attack, so go you!). Just persist Divine Power + Righteous Wrath of the Faithful + whatever defensive buffs you like and go to town.

[Ballista]

Well, due to my guilty conscience, I have decided to not use the early entry with Generic Spellcaster. Instead I'll be using a more traditional approach with a Cleric (no ACF) as my base class. I am going to be worshiping a homebrew deity with the Domains Air, Thirst and Desert (wow stroke of luck right there).

Due to the underwhelming viability of a gish, I've decide that I'd stick with a minion/undead master like Rejusu first suggested. So... any thoughts about this?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, due to my guilty conscience, I have decided to not use the early entry with Generic Spellcaster. Instead I'll be using a more traditional approach with a Cleric (no ACF) as my base class. I am going to be worshiping a homebrew deity with the Domains Air, Thirst and Desert (wow stroke of luck right there).

Due to the underwhelming viability of a gish, I've decide that I'd stick with a minion/undead master like Rejusu first suggested. So... any thoughts about this?

There's several feats which make Disposable Minions rather obnoxious for your opponents.

First off... Corpsecrafter gives them a bit of extra damage output and a bit more survivability. But the key here is that it's just the prerequisite for what you actually want.

Destructive Retribution. Requires Corpsecrafter above. Basically, your undead minions blow up and do negative energy damage in an area effect. Which heals your other minions and yourself.

Also, never underestimate Lord of Uttercold when combined with skeletal minions, who are immune to cold. Not only does it deal damage to your opponents, but it heals your minions at the same time!

Also, get yourself a copy of Unapproachable East and check out the spell Animate Dread Warrior. He shows back up with all the class levels he had in life, which means exceedingly nasty minions.

[Jeff the Green]

My favorite trick is to put ranks in Craft (sculpture). You then create a statue of whatever creature you want as a minion. (Find someone to) cast stone to flesh. The spell explicitly states that it becomes a corpse, which you then animate, preferably as a Bone or Corpse creature from BoVD, though zombies and skeletons can work too.

Technically Craft (ice sculpture) is better since ice to flesh (Frostburn) is a lower level than stone to flesh, but you might have problems getting away with it in a desert campaign.

Another possibility is getting yourself Spell Stitched when you lichify. Animate dead/animate dread warrior is nice because it lets you cast them without a material component.

Edit: Also, though I know you said no ACFs, consider a Cloistered Cleric. You only lose a few BAB (which you don't care about), heavier armor (which you don't want in the desert anyway) and a lower hitdie (which disappears at level 13), and get the more class skills (nice), Knowledge Domain (nicer), and 6 skillpoints per level (nicest).

[Madara]

Did someone say undead minons? *Twitch*

Yessir, minioning can be greeeat fun. But first how many people are in your group? If its under 5, then you can usually minion. Otherwise keep a few nice bruisers around. Are you starting at level 1?

[Ballista]

Did someone say undead minons? *Twitch*

Yessir, minioning can be greeeat fun. But first how many people are in your group? If its under 5, then you can usually minion. Otherwise keep a few nice bruisers around. Are you starting at level 1?

About 4 people in the group including myself, give or take one occasionally, and we are starting at first level.

[Tokuhara]

I prefer Archivist --> WitW personally (Archivist is Divine Wizard essentially, but has actual Class Features), and on a thematic side makes a lot of sense.

[eggs]

One problem is that Walker in the waste is just another caster. :smalltongue:
Besides its Sand Golems (which are pretty cheap, compared to other Gargantuan golems), it doesn't have any unique abilities to set it apart until it hits its capstone. If you want to make it distinct, there are quite a few Sandstorm spells that capture the flavor, but that don't suck. The one thing to notice is that Dehydration is a decent effect (fatigue) that a lot of those spells don't hesitate to tag on.

Your earliest WitW entry is going to be ECL 7, assuming Dessicate, Waste Strider and Haboob as qualifiers. That leaves 8 levels where all of your offensive capabilities are coming from 3 level 1 spells, 2 level 2 spells and Haboob (the other early spells from those domains are junk). Choose them carefully, and try to address as many defenses as possible (a ranged touch spell, one group debuff for each save and something generally useful like Alter Self, Nerveskitter or Benign Transposition would probably be the way to start).

Wait until higher levels to start retraining your low-level spell slots into more dedicated gish options. I really wouldn't recommend it until at least ECL 11, when you can start dropping Quickened Spells (or other casting time-reducers you want to use, like Spell Matrix or Arcane Fusion or whatever; ECL 11 is the default level for those things).

[lord_khaine]

What, how you do get the entry up to level 7?

Normal entry with the right domains are level 3.

[Jeff the Green]

I prefer Archivist --> WitW personally (Archivist is Divine Wizard essentially, but has actual Class Features), and on a thematic side makes a lot of sense.

I disagree. Archivists need high Intelligence, good Wisdom, and decent Dexterity. Walker in the Waste needs high Charisma. That means you can only dump Constitution and Strength (unless you can get either Academic Priest or Dynamic Priest, but those are third party). Best (assuming you're not using the level 2 entry generic caster trick) is probably Cleric, since they like Charisma, and if you're doing either minionmancy or regular old casting you don't need to worry about strength or intelligence.

Plus, you won't be getting many of those class features, since you won't be taking more than 3 levels. The flavor's a good match, but that's about it.


What, how you do get the entry up to level 7?

Normal entry with the right domains are level 3.
Heck, even with only 1 domain (Sand), since desiccate is a 2nd level Cleric spell. Maybe he's talking about needing the +2 Fortitude save for Heat Endurance? If so, check out this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12950430&postcount=11) post of mine where, as far as I can tell, I showed the first way to enter WiTW at 2nd level.

-----------

So, Ballista, there are two questions you should figure out about your campaign before you decide between minionmancy and regular casting. First, is it IRL/Skype/chat, or PBP? If it's PBP, go ahead. Since there's a bunch of lag time between turns anyway, needing to plan out moves for a dozen or two minions isn't a problem. Heck, everyone could be playing Dread Necromancers, Thrallherds, and Diplomancers, and the only thing to suffer would be the political stability of your DM's world. Realtime media are more problematic. You can get away with it if you're super organized and think really fast, but you'll still be slowing down combat.

Second, what is missing in your party? If you're missing a meatshield/damage dealer, a minionmancer can make up for that easy. Particularly if you've got a bard with Requiem handy. If you're missing a utility caster, a skill monkey, or a face, you'd be better off focusing on regular divine casting, since you can take up any or even all of those roles, but not as well while focusing on minionmancy.

[Madara]

Your earliest WitW entry is going to be ECL 7, assuming Dessicate, Waste Strider and Haboob as qualifiers. That leaves 8 levels where all of your offensive capabilities are coming from 3 level 1 spells, 2 level 2 spells and Haboob (the other early spells from those domains are junk). Choose them carefully, and try to address as many defenses as possible (a ranged touch spell, one group debuff for each save and something generally useful like Alter Self, Nerveskitter or Benign Transposition would probably be the way to start).


Which is why I would second the Archevist for 4th? level entry. With your group size I suggest two options:
1. The archevist who searches for lost knowledge in the wastes of once great lands, slowly becoming one with the waste.(Debuff route, flavored as making the Waste away(haha))
2. The Cleric, betrayed by his god who was forsaken in the waste. With this curse, he wandered, raising undead companions to protect him from the harsh land.(Minionmancer)

If you still want a Gish feel with attacking, I would suggest debuffing with rays...ect, which is best done via Archevist compared to Cleric. The Cleric would be better at the undead army, but not by too much.

As for race, I would suggest the Bhuku or whatever. Its the goblin in the sandstorm book. They don't have any down sides, and they come with Heat Endurance.

[Ballista]

So, Ballista, there are two questions you should figure out about your campaign before you decide between minionmancy and regular casting. First, is it IRL/Skype/chat, or PBP? If it's PBP, go ahead. Since there's a bunch of lag time between turns anyway, needing to plan out moves for a dozen or two minions isn't a problem. Heck, everyone could be playing Dread Necromancers, Thrallherds, and Diplomancers, and the only thing to suffer would be the political stability of your DM's world. Realtime media are more problematic. You can get away with it if you're super organized and think really fast, but you'll still be slowing down combat.

Second, what is missing in your party? If you're missing a meatshield/damage dealer, a minionmancer can make up for that easy. Particularly if you've got a bard with Requiem handy. If you're missing a utility caster, a skill monkey, or a face, you'd be better off focusing on regular divine casting, since you can take up any or even all of those roles, but not as well while focusing on minionmancy.

The sessions will be IRL since all the players live in about the same area. I used to play RTS games (ie Starcraft, Warcraft, Command and Conquer) a while back so controlling minions won't be much of a problem, though, like you said, will still slow down everything.

To be honest about the composition, I only know that one of the players may want to run a druid and another wants to be a rogue, so the meatshield slot is still open. The rogue's player is fairly decent at roleplaying, and has pumped Charisma in almost every other campaign we've played so we've got the face of the party right there. The druid on the other hand, is fairly new at D&D so I can't really depend on him too much as our caster.

[eggs]

I disagree. Archivists need high Intelligence, good Wisdom, and decent Dexterity. Walker in the Waste needs high Charisma. That means you can only dump Constitution and Strength (unless you can get either Academic Priest or Dynamic Priest, but those are third party).An Archivist/WitW benefits from a high Wisdom, Charisma or Dexterity; it doesn't rely on them. That's a meaningful difference - You can toss an Archivist with 14 Int, 10 Con and 6s in everything else into full plate and still worry about making the party Warblade feel unwanted (it still has every BC, planar binding, polymorph and ill-balanced combat spell that it ever had). Archivist/WitW is fine.

I'm not sure what the Spellcaster trick is, but I'm suspecting it's both sketchy in implementation (pulling the generic class variant into play for one character) and RAW-illegal ("[A Generic Spellcaster] may select her spells known from the cleric, druid, and sorcerer/wizard spell lists.").

If the goal is an Arcane Gish, using Archivist with Southern Magician would be kind of pointless, but would hit the concept more effectively - and without introducing a weird subsystem for one character only.

[Jeff the Green]

An Archivist/WitW benefits from a high Wisdom, Charisma or Dexterity; it doesn't rely on them. That's a meaningful difference - You can toss an Archivist with 14 Int, 10 Con and 6s in everything else into full plate and still worry about making the party Warblade feel unwanted (it still has every BC, planar binding, polymorph and ill-balanced combat spell that it ever had). Archivist/WitW is fine.

The problem with that is that almost the entire point of taking WitW is the fact that it's a beast for soaking up damage and has nice special attacks. But the only reason it can soak up damage so well is that it's one of the very few (maybe the only) way for PCs to get Charisma to HP as an undead. Undead are normally a bit fragile despite their d12 hitdie, because they're destroyed at 0 hp, meaning they effectively have 10 fewer hitpoints, and they don't get bonus HP from an ability score. Their special abilities, likewise, have Charisma-and Wisdom-based DCs. Dry Lich really wants Charisma, and Archivist really wants to dump it.


I'm not sure what the Spellcaster trick is, but I'm suspecting it's both sketchy in implementation (pulling the generic class variant into play for one character) and RAW-illegal ("[A Generic Spellcaster] may select her spells known from the cleric, druid, and sorcerer/wizard spell lists.").

The point of the Generic Spellcaster is that it has 100% charisma casting (unlike any divine casters) and can have a good fortitude save (unlike any other arcane casters) and so can choose Heat Endurance at 1st level. Even without the super early entry trick it's an awesome choice for WitW.

While I agree that choosing a generic class for a single character is a little sketchy, as long as you're not abusing it to get into prestige classes early it really shouldn't be a problem, and is still RAW legal (it's just recommended not to mix them and standard classes). And I don't understand your point about RAW illegality. WitW doesn't actually need the domains, and the domain spells are available on the Druid, Wizard/Sorcerer, and Cleric lists. Seriously, don't just suspect. I posted a link to where I originally proposed the trick in my last post. If you haven't yet, check it out.

[Tokuhara]

The only reason I've ever played a Generic Spellcaster was for a Spellwarp Trickster build, and honest to God, it is one of my favorite characters EVER

[eggs]

Seriously, don't just suspect. I posted a link to where I originally proposed the trick in my last post. If you haven't yet, check it out.
Gotcha, I missed Parching Touch on the Wizard list. That would sort it out.

The problem with that is that almost the entire point of taking WitW is the fact that it's a beast for soaking up damage and has nice special attacks.If WitW is being used toward a mechanical goal, you're right - the reason is the HP bonus and a Charisma-based casing class makes that HP inexpensive.

If WitW is being used for the sake of playing a WitW, Charisma-based casters are a weak option (beside the Sorcerer, most are much weaker than options like the Archivist, Cleric, Druid, &c.). Expanding a spell list by several hundred entries is way more useful than adding a hundredish HP - especially considering all the various defenses and non-action HP surges available to divine casters (Uttercold Blasting, Contingent Harm/Heal, various temporary HP engines like False Life, Minor Shapeshift or Necrotic Empowerment or non-action restorers like Shapechange).

In both cases, the WitW is a caster-heavy build who's taken the necessary precautions to weather high-level combat until the transformation. Neither should be too hard-pressed for survivability after the type-shift (even with tanked Charisma).

[Jeff the Green]

Expanding a spell list by several hundred entries is way more useful than adding a hundredish HP - especially considering all the various defenses and non-action HP surges available to divine casters (Uttercold Blasting, Contingent Harm/Heal, various temporary HP engines like False Life, Minor Shapeshift or Necrotic Empowerment or non-action restorers like Shapechange).

The problem I have with that is (and it goes mostly to my own priorities for characters, so YMMV) that the spells you get are dependent on the campaign. If you don't have downtime to scribe spells into your book or aren't getting enough or the right scrolls you're hosed. If you're confident you won't have that problem or your DM has houserules to obviate them, it's fine. But without knowing anything about the campaign, I don't like recommending Wizards or Archivists.

If you do want to be an Archivist, consider being an Illumian with the Uur and Krau sigils. Krau functions as half of Practiced Caster, so those two lost casting levels in WitW doesn't hit your CL. The power word Uurkrau lets you get bonus spells from Dexterity, so you can dump Wisdom and just get Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma. Your desiccating touch DC will suffer, but you want the dehydration effect more than the damage, so it's not all that bad.

[Madara]

I suggest the practical version of the Archevist; Take ranks in Gather Information so you can find scrolls ASAP :smallbiggrin:

[eggs]

The problem I have with that is (and it goes mostly to my own priorities for characters, so YMMV) that the spells you get are dependent on the campaign.
That's a valid point.

Archivist works best when the DM understands and agrees with a player's plans. If that's not the case (or if you're not sure), the choice turns into early entry/reduced casting via Generic Spellcaster v. slow entry/full prepared casting via Druid or Cleric, which is a less straightforward.

And on the point of being sure the DM's on the same page, make sure he is aware of the WBL component of the WitW; without access to the canopic jars, the capstone becomes a bit of a dud.

[maxrz]

Keep in mind, in order to become a Dry Lich, one must go through the Sere Rite. There's a few things that need to happen first before that can happen.

-Find Dry Lich
-Make it willing to perform Sere Rite
-Make Canopic Jars

That last one requires you to be level 14, no two ways of slicing it or dicing it. There's really no advantage to gaining this PrC earlier than 5 >.>

[2xMachina]

Well, technically, you can delay the capstone, and take other PrCs before that. Plenty of good divine PrCs to get into.

Say, Cleric 3/WitW9/PrC3/WitW1/PrC5

Gets you... like 2 or 3 more lvs of PrC class features

[Jeff the Green]

Keep in mind, in order to become a Dry Lich, one must go through the Sere Rite. There's a few things that need to happen first before that can happen.

-Find Dry Lich
-Make it willing to perform Sere Rite
-Make Canopic Jars

That last one requires you to be level 14, no two ways of slicing it or dicing it. There's really no advantage to gaining this PrC earlier than 5 >.>

That's not actually true. Here's the description:


Canopic Jar: Strong necromancy; CL 14th; Craft Wondrous Item, 9th-level walker in the waste; Price 20,000 gp.

Where it says "CL 14" it's referring to the item's caster level; only what comes between the caster level and the price are prerequisites. See how "Craft Wondrous Item" and "9th-level walker in the waste" are separated by a comma but "CL 14" is separated from them by a semicolon? That's how you know they're not part of the same list. The relevant rule is here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/magicItemBasics.htm#magicItemDescriptions) in the SRD.

[maxrz]

So as long as you're a 9th level WitW and have the craft wondrous item feat, and the gold/materials/etc necessary to make it, you can make the jars?

EX: You can qualify for WitW very easily as cleric at lvl 3. By the time you hit WitW 9, you're a level 12. You can create the jars, who have a caster level of 14, as a level 12?

[Jeff the Green]

So as long as you're a 9th level WitW and have the craft wondrous item feat, and the gold/materials/etc necessary to make it, you can make the jars?

EX: You can qualify for WitW very easily as cleric at lvl 3. By the time you hit WitW 9, you're a level 12. You can create the jars, who have a caster level of 14, as a level 12?

Yep. Though, I think a Cleric 3/WitW 9 (who would actually have CL 11, since they lose a level of spell casting at first level) would create canopic jars with CL 11 (or lower, if they wanted to), because of this rule:


For potions, scrolls, and wands, the creator can set the caster level of an item at any number high enough to cast the stored spell and not higher than her own caster level. For other magic items, the caster level is determined by the creator. The minimum caster level is that which is needed to meet the prerequisites given.

The CL listed seems to be just a guideline.