Craft Wonderous Items at Level 1? THoughts

[incog64]

With Disciple of Bocoob (ACF) and Elemental Spellcasting (feat) both defined below, I believe I should qualify for Craft Wonderous Items at level 1. In summary, Elemental Spellcasting gives me a plus 1 caster for a elemental type and Disciple of Bocoob gives me a plus 1 to caster level for qualifying and using magic item creation feats, I believe the aforementioned combined give a caster of 3 for magic item creation feats at level 1, thoughts?

Disciple of Boccob
(Dragon Magazine 357, p. 89)
As a deeply loyal and pious student of Boccob the Uncaring, you know the secret to creating powerful magic items through your understanding of the Archmage of the Deities' teachings.

Level: 1st (4th for hexblades).

Replaces: If you select this class feature you do not gain a familiar.

Benefit: You qualify for item creation feats as a character 1 level higher. Magic items you create are crafted at +1 caster level. The item gains this bonus for free; you do not pay the extra cost associated with a higher caster level. If you destroy a permanent magic item you lose all arcane spellcasting abilities for a day per caster level of the item.

Elemental Spellcasting [Fire]
( Planar Handbook, p. 39)

[General]

Choose an element (air, earth, fi re, or water). You cast spells with that descriptor more effectively than normal.

Prerequisite
Knowledge (the planes) 2 ranks,

Benefit
You cast spells with the chosen descriptor at +1 caster level.

Special
You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take this feat, it applies to a new element

[tyckspoon]

"You cast spells with +1 CL" is not the same as "Your CL is 1 higher" - feat requirements do not care if your Shocking Grasp is cast at CL3 instead of 1. Doesn't work.

Even if it did, you'd have spent two feats and a fairly valuable alternate class feature choice in order to gain access to a crafting feat at a level where you don't have enough gold or usable XP to actually make anything.

[incog64]

"You cast spells with +1 CL" is not the same as "Your CL is 1 higher" - feat requirements do not care if your Shocking Grasp is cast at CL3 instead of 1. Doesn't work.

Even if it did, you'd have spent two feats and a fairly valuable alternate class feature choice in order to gain access to a crafting feat at a level where you don't have enough gold or usable XP to actually make anything.

For your first position, do you have some kind of ruling to back that position. For your second statement, this is for my cohort and we aren't using Eberron so no artificer and this guy is coming online at level 4.

[Gnaeus]

"You cast spells with +1 CL" is not the same as "Your CL is 1 higher" - feat requirements do not care if your Shocking Grasp is cast at CL3 instead of 1. Doesn't work.

Even if it did, you'd have spent two feats and a fairly valuable alternate class feature choice in order to gain access to a crafting feat at a level where you don't have enough gold or usable XP to actually make anything.

I mostly agree with this. There are a handful of cheap, useful items you could access for cheap. But even assuming you can meet the prerequisites, which you sometimes can for useful stuff, WBL for level 2 is 900 gp. Assuming you can craft items with double your WBL, because there is a party member who also needs stuff you can craft, you are spending 2 feats to save 900 gp for 1 level? He is correct, casting x spell with a higher caster level does not mean you are CL Y.

Ohhhh, its useful on a follower or a cohort in cooperative crafting. Master provides the spell, gold and exp and just needs the feat.

[incog64]

I mostly agree with this. There are a handful of cheap, useful items you could access for cheap. But even assuming you can meet the prerequisites, which you sometimes can for useful stuff, WBL for level 2 is 900 gp. Assuming you can craft items with double your WBL, because there is a party member who also needs stuff you can craft, you are spending 2 feats to save 900 gp for 1 level? He is correct, casting x spell with a higher caster level does not mean you are CL Y.

Ohhhh, its useful on a follower or a cohort in cooperative crafting. Master provides the spell, gold and exp and just needs the feat.

Yup I just need the cohort to qualify for the feat. The spells and other stuff will be provided via someone else at early levels. Also at level 3 the cohort would qualify for craft arms and armor and at level 6 I believe I can get them to qualify for craft rods.

[Troacctid]

Celestial Scion is probably better for qualifying for item creation. It's a level 1 feat that gives you a CL 16 Su ability.

[incog64]

I mostly agree with this. There are a handful of cheap, useful items you could access for cheap. But even assuming you can meet the prerequisites, which you sometimes can for useful stuff, WBL for level 2 is 900 gp. Assuming you can craft items with double your WBL, because there is a party member who also needs stuff you can craft, you are spending 2 feats to save 900 gp for 1 level? He is correct, casting x spell with a higher caster level does not mean you are CL Y.

Ohhhh, its useful on a follower or a cohort in cooperative crafting. Master provides the spell, gold and exp and just needs the feat.

Caster Level as defined below from the PHB p 171.

Caster Level

In the event that a class feature, domain granted power, or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt) but also to your caster level check to overcome your target’s spell resistance (see Spell Resistance, page 177) and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check). For instance, a 7th-level cleric with the Good domain casts spells with the good descriptor as if he were 8th level. This means that his holy smite deals 4d8 points of damage, he tolls 1d20+8 to overcome spell resistance with his good spells, and his protection from evil spell resists being dispelled as if it had been cast by an 8th-level spellcaster.

Caster Level is effected by domain granted powers as stated above. Granted powers uses the same language as Elemental Spellcasting as per below.

Oracle Domain - Granted Powers: You cast divination spells at +2 caster levels.

Elemental Spellcasting Benefit - You cast spells with the chosen descriptor at +1 caster level.

So if domain granted powers change caster level, so should this feat.

There are feats that grant a plus 1 enhancement bonus to caster level and if this feat did that I would agree that it wouldn't apply.

[incog64]

Celestial Scion is probably better for qualifying for item creation. It's a level 1 feat that gives you a CL 16 Su ability.

Thanks but that's a regional feat which we don't really use.

[tyckspoon]

Caster Level as defined below from the PHB p 171.

Caster Level

There are feats that grant a plus 1 enhancement bonus to caster level and if this feat did that I would agree that it wouldn't apply.

So the rules pretty interchangeably use Caster Level to refer to like four different (but related) things, which is not great for trying to figure out how many things are actually supposed to work. The rationale I am using, and I think is fairly consistent with implications throughout the books, goes roughly:

As a level 1 casting class, your Caster Level is 1. This is the 'caster level' things like the requirement for Craft Wondrous Items is checking for - it's a static value and is mostly unchanging.
- The ACF you're looking at explicitly makes you count as 1 level higher for craft feats. Ok, you're now at 2, that's pretty straightforward.

- Your Caster Level can also be checked when you actually cast a spell, in order to see what any CL-dependent traits of the spell should use. This is what things like Elemental Spellcasting and Domain bonuses affect - the rules text you quoted is specifically in regards to how CL interacts with casting a spell, and should not be expanded in applicability beyond that.
- So you take Elemental Focus (Fire) and cast a (Fire) spell. Your CL for this is also 2 - your ACF does not affect this, because it's not a crafting feat.

- You cannot apply Elemental Focus to qualify for Craft Wondrous, because 'Craft Wondrous Item' is not a spell and does not have the (Fire) descriptor. The fact that you can increase your CL in -some- situations does not mean your CL is increased for things outside of that situation.

- Also, reviewing this, at no point do you ever have CL3 anyways. You have 2 different non-overlapping situational bonuses that each result in CL2 for their specific area of relevance.

[incog64]

So the rules pretty interchangeably use Caster Level to refer to like four different (but related) things, which is not great for trying to figure out how many things are actually supposed to work. The rationale I am using, and I think is fairly consistent with implications throughout the books, goes roughly:

As a level 1 casting class, your Caster Level is 1. This is the 'caster level' things like the requirement for Craft Wondrous Items is checking for - it's a static value and is mostly unchanging.
- The ACF you're looking at explicitly makes you count as 1 level higher for craft feats. Ok, you're now at 2, that's pretty straightforward.

- Your Caster Level can also be checked when you actually cast a spell, in order to see what any CL-dependent traits of the spell should use. This is what things like Elemental Spellcasting and Domain bonuses affect - the rules text you quoted is specifically in regards to how CL interacts with casting a spell, and should not be expanded in applicability beyond that.
- So you take Elemental Focus (Fire) and cast a (Fire) spell. Your CL for this is also 2 - your ACF does not affect this, because it's not a crafting feat.

- You cannot apply Elemental Focus to qualify for Craft Wondrous, because 'Craft Wondrous Item' is not a spell and does not have the (Fire) descriptor. The fact that you can increase your CL in -some- situations does not mean your CL is increased for things outside of that situation.

- Also, reviewing this, at no point do you ever have CL3 anyways. You have 2 different non-overlapping situational bonuses that each result in CL2 for their specific area of relevance.


Check a couple of posts up on how Caster Level is defined and that it is adjusted via domain granted powers which use the same language as the feat I picked.

[Maat Mons]

If you can use Pathfinder material, Unsworn Shaman can gain Craft Wondrous Item at 1st level. And when I say “can gain,” I mean your 1st-level ability lets you pick a benefit from a list, and change that decision every day. One of the options on the list is Craft Wondrous Item as a Bonus feat. Another option is Brew Potion as a bonus feat. A third option is any metamagic feat you qualify for as a bonus feat. It’s kind of a nice ability.

[Oxylepy]

I feel like this is going to come down to "you cast spells" vs treating your caster level as a higher level. Yeah, you have an increased caster level when you are "casting spells" but when you go to do a check for what your caster level is to qualify for a feat, you don't get the adjusted number for alterations to caster level when casting spells, you get your caster level. This is simply plain wording. To qualify for the feat you must be Caster Level 3rd, it's not your caster level when you cast a divination spell, it's not your caster level with spells of the air descriptor, it's your caster level both as written and as intended. Then the alternative class feature does treat your caster level as 1 higher for the purpose of qualifying for feats, it specifies it, there is no question about it.

Your quote from PHB 171 doesn't apply to this as written, it applies to effects in the spell that use caster level, overcoming spell resistance and to dispel checks. By RAW that's a full stop for what that entry covers. And qualifying for feats is not one of the included things so it just isn't applicable if we're trying for RAW here, and there really isn't a RAI conversation to be had here.

So as written your attempt to meet the qualifications isn't holding up, as intended it definitely doesn't hold up, and as your DM will let you do is up to your DM and this whole conversation doesn't matter if you just ask your DM to let you take the feat at level 1 and they give you an amswer.

[Satinavian]

Caster Level as defined below from the PHB p 171.

In the event that a class feature, domain granted power, or other special ability provides an adjustment to your caster level, that adjustment applies not only to effects based on caster level (such as range, duration, and damage dealt) but also to your caster level check to overcome your target’s spell resistance (see Spell Resistance, page 177) and to the caster level used in dispel checks (both the dispel check and the DC of the check). For instance, a 7th-level cleric with the Good domain casts spells with the good descriptor as if he were 8th level. This means that his holy smite deals 4d8 points of damage, he tolls 1d20+8 to overcome spell resistance with his good spells, and his protection from evil spell resists being dispelled as if it had been cast by an 8th-level spellcaster.

Does it mention crafting or feat prequesites ? No, it doesn't. It is all about how the spell really is treated as CL8, not about how you are treated as having CL 8. It is about how adjustments to CL for a spell apply to all parts of that particular spell.

So, no. I agree with the others that this doesn't work.

[Forrestfire]

While it's debatable whether or not conditional CL boosts will work (as outlined by others in the thread), it is verifiable—explicitly using Craft Wondrous Item as an example, even—that the CL for spell-like abilities will count towards prerequisites.


In the context of a feat or a prestige class requirement, a caster level prerequisite (such as “caster level 5th”) measures the character’s ability to channel a minimum amount of magical power. For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities or invocations instead of spells use either their fixed caster level or their class level to determine qualification. For example, Craft Wondrous Item has a requirement of caster level 3rd, so both a 3rd-level warlock and a nixie (caster level 4th for its charm person spell-like ability) meet the requirement.

Note that supernatural abilities are not included in this rule, so you may or may not be able to swing that (I would, as a DM, rule that the above rule establishes a pretty clear precedent for using supernatural abilities for it, but I know some DMs wouldn't).

With that in mind, the most effective (and most unambiguous) option would be to use the duergar race (either the lesser version from page 90 of Player's Guide to Faerûn or the LA +0 version from the Savage Progressions web articles (https://web.archive.org/web/20050212115004/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a)), which comes with CL 3 enlarge person and invisibility SLAs.

Also, for the sake of completionism, the Second Sight feat from Dragon Magazine #319 grants a 1/day augury SLA at CL 3. However, it's a regional feat so as you mentioned, you may not have access.