Is there a way to increase the caster level of a magic item, either temporarily or permanently?
I was looking at the Shawl of Shadowy Disguise from Blood of Shadows, which states, "While worn, the wearer can hide her appearance as if with a penumbral disguise spell." The spell Penumbral Disguise reads, "You mask your features with shadowy illumination, gaining a competence bonus equal to your caster level on Disguise checks and Stealth checks attempted while in normal light, dim light, or darkness."
Now, I gather that the primary point of the cloak is the spell's OTHER benefit (obscuring your features when not in bright or normal light), and not the skill bonuses I listed above. But so far as I can tell, those bonuses would still be applied, albeit at a relatively low bonus since the cloak's caster level is only 5. So, that got me wondering if there was a way to pump up the cloak's CL.
Thoughts? Even if I've read the cloak's rules incorrectly I'd still be interested in learning whether a magic item's CL can be increased after creation.
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Any item can be created at any caster level equal to or high than the minimum to cast the spell. So that cloak COULD have a caster level of 20.
Doing so changes the cost. For example, a potion of Cure Light Wounds at caster level 1 costs 50gp (base price) while at caster level 2 it costs 100gp, and at caster level 5 it costs 250gp.
If you make your cloak, you decide the caster level. If you find a cloak (presumably caster level 5), you could further enchant it yourself, or pay someone to do it, up to a higher caster level by paying the cost difference.
Any item can be created at any caster level equal to or high than the minimum to cast the spell. So that cloak COULD have a caster level of 20.
Doing so changes the cost. For example, a potion of Cure Light Wounds at caster level 1 costs 50gp (base price) while at caster level 2 it costs 100gp, and at caster level 5 it costs 250gp.
If you make your cloak, you decide the caster level. If you find a cloak (presumably caster level 5), you could further enchant it yourself, or pay someone to do it, up to a higher caster level by paying the cost difference.
Ah. I knew about choosing a higher CL at the original time of creation, but I didn't catch that it could be further enchanted like that thereafter (I mean, I knew about it for weapons and armor, but not wondrous items). Thanks, that's useful. I don't suppose there's also a feat, spell, or ability for enacting such an enhancement on the fly, or temporarily?
Is there a way to increase the caster level of a magic item, either temporarily or permanently?
I was looking at the Shawl of Shadowy Disguise from Blood of Shadows, which states, "While worn, the wearer can hide her appearance as if with a penumbral disguise spell." The spell Penumbral Disguise reads, "You mask your features with shadowy illumination, gaining a competence bonus equal to your caster level on Disguise checks and Stealth checks attempted while in normal light, dim light, or darkness."
Now, I gather that the primary point of the cloak is the spell's OTHER benefit (obscuring your features when not in bright or normal light), and not the skill bonuses I listed above. But so far as I can tell, those bonuses would still be applied, albeit at a relatively low bonus since the cloak's caster level is only 5. So, that got me wondering if there was a way to pump up the cloak's CL.
Thoughts? Even if I've read the cloak's rules incorrectly I'd still be interested in learning whether a magic item's CL can be increased after creation.
You can't temporarily increase an item's Caster Level normally, unless you get a Macguffin that allows such a thing.
What you can do, is create the item at a higher Caster Level.
Let's take for example, the Boots of Speed. A CL 10 Foot slot item that provides Haste for 10 Rounds, which is iconic to the CL of the item, as they are one and the same (that is, both the item's CL and its duration in rounds is 10, and in the Spell, they're correlated).
But as to whether increasing the CL will do anything, that's a difficult question, and there are two sides to it.
Per RAW, if I increased the CL of that item, it wouldn't affected the rounds at all. The item is set on 10 rounds per day in the description, and doesn't mention any correlation CL at all. That's it. End of story.
Per RAI, an item's effect which is based on its CL, and is synonymous with such under normal conditions (which I'm going to presume that the Boots of Speed are, since both the CL and the Rounds Per Day are the same), would have its power related to its CL. This means if I crafted Boots of Speed at CL 20, it would provide 20 rounds per day of Haste.
Unfortunately, the rules are ambiguous (that is, it's not 100% clear-cut), and either interpretation described above would be applicable, but as to which one would be the actual intent of the rules...who knows.
In general magic item caster level comes in a couple of flavors.
The first is that it is relevant to only things like dispel magic for suppressing the item etc. This caster level can be increased for free, as long as the creator as a caster level of at least that high.
The other is when the item is made using the 'spell in a can' fromula, basically CL * SL * (base * modifiers). Not all items follow this formula, since some spells are more equal than others, so this is subject to GM interpretation. So if you can properly figure out what the base cost + the modifiers would be, which for a continuous item primarily depends on the duration of the spell, then each additional caster level adds that much to the price per level of the spell.
All of this only applies if your game allows custom magic items, so it wouldn't be allowed in PFS.