What is Caster Level?

[Matt2VK]

Situation: Power Gamer that has 3 levels in Sorcerer wants to pick up some extra healing. Is looking at the Bard Archetype: Songhealer.

Songhealer at first level has this ability -

Enhance Healing (Su)
A number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier, a songhealer can cause any healing effect from a spell completion or spell trigger item to function at a caster level equal to his class level.

What's his caster level if he does this at 4th level?

RAW -

RAI -

[bigkilla]

If at 4th level he took a level in Bard he would be caster level 1 for his one and only Bard level.For Sorcerer he would be caster level 3.

[bookrat]

If he's a sorcerer, he can't pick up the bard archetype at all.

If he's a Sorc 3 / Bard 1, his caster level for that ability is 1, and his caster level for any sorc ability is 3.

Edit: Ninja'd by less than a minute. :P

[DeathQuaker]

Yes, "class level" in a class description refers to THAT CLASS ONLY.

If the entry meant your entire character level (all of your class levels added together) it would say it would be equal to your "character level" or "hit dice."

And caster level otherwise never adds together character levels from disparate casting classes.