Ok, i'm confused on an aspect of craft....i know i am making a mistake, i just don't know where
The prereq for putting enchantments on armor and weapons is having a lvl 3 times the enchantment....
+1 = lvl 3
+5 = lvl 15
but then what about the special abilities, that allows you to get up to a +10 bonus
+10 = lvl 30......at some point do you need to just take the +5dc for not meeting the prereq?
The +10 of special abilities refers to the upper limits of the magic you can imbue into a non-epic magical item. It does not refer to the crafting DC for imbuing that sword with magic. When you add additional powers to a straight +X weapon, you use the caster level listed for a given ability, not the new total of enhancement bonuses and special abilities, to determine the necessary caster level and DC for success.
The enhancement bonus of weapons and armor are based off of the 3xCL, but special abilities have their own, different, requirements.
For example, a Flaming weapon requires the creator has flame blade, flame strike, or fireball. It's created at CL 10, so the DC is based off of that. So for this, regardless of what the enhancement bonus was, it'll be a DC 15 with one of the spells, or DC 20 without.
The total bonus is just used when figuring out how much things will cost.
ok, and the CL prereq for that ability is the one listed?
The CL listed is there just to determine the base DC. The caster doesn't need to have that CL unless it shows up under "requirements" (although an appropriate CL to cast any spells required may be necessary).