Artificer with caster levels creating an item?

[schreier]

We have a player in a gestalt game who has artificer 5 / Cleric 10 on one side, and wizard 5 / Dweomerkeeper 10 on the other .... so is basically a 5 artificer / 10 cleric / 15 wizard ....

When making items, could he use the level 5 artificer ability Retain Essence to grab xp from items, but use his level 15 caster level to make them?

I guess a similar question would exist in a straight 5 artificer / 15 wizard (simple non-optimized / non-gestalt build)

[ViperMagnum357]

Yes he can do that, but he would have to choose which class to use to craft with-he can craft anything as an artificer by emulating the requirements, but his top creator level is 7; Artificer 5 +2. He can also craft as a level 15 wizard, but he must also meet all the usual requirements when constructing something outside the range of his artificer crafter level. He could craft a Rod or Staff or Ring, but only by meeting the requirements normally. He can also craft as Cleric 10 should he want something with divine requirements between 8 and 10.

:smallconfused: Really rather odd build-most I have seen will take Artificer to 20 on one side, since that represents such a massive amount of feats and XP bonus, plus being able to take 10 on Spellcraft and UMD.

[schreier]

Not at all optimized - more for fun - and there was no true healer, so the level 10 cleric helped with the healing aspect ...

So:

The xp can come from retained essence regardless of where the qualifications can come from.

And obviously the source of the feat doesn't matter ... would all of the "spell effects" need to come from one "source?"

for example - could the level 15 caster level and wizard spells be used for most, but then use Artificer and UMD for a druid spell to add?

[ViperMagnum357]

Depends on the effects-you could craft an item from your wizard 15; then, say, add a 4th level druid spell 3/day to it via artificer. However, if the level was outside the reach of your artificer level, you could not use it to emulate a missing requirement. If you were trying to construct a Chaos Diamond or another item with multiple spell requirements, you could not use Artificer to "fill the gaps" so to speak. You would have to meet all the base requirements with whatever class is actually "crafting"; usually why Artificer is taken straight up. However, you can definitely use those artificer levels to tack on lower level effects that would not normally be available to you.