For Arcane Strike how do you calculate your caster levels?

[Rycaut]

Arcane Strike reads:

Quote:

As a swift action, you can imbue your weapons with a fraction of your power. For 1 round, your weapons deal +1 damage and are treated as magic for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. For every five caster levels you possess, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +5 at 20th level.

My question is how do you resolve the line "caster levels you possess"?

A few cases to illustrate my questions:

If you are a race with a spell like ability (like say Gnomes) you have a CL for those spell-like abilities = your character level. If you only had that spell like ability and the Arcane Strike Feat then your caster level is fairly easy to determine - it would be your character level. So a 5th level gnome fighter (with a high enough CHA to get spell like abilities) would have a CL of 5 and if she took Arcane Strike would get a +2 when she uses Arcane Strike.

What if, however, that same 5th level gnome was a sorcerer not a fighter. Now you would have a CL as a sorcerer (of 5) and a CL for your spell like abilities (also of 5). Would you get a +2 or a +3 when you use Arcane Strike?

Now image you were an unusual gnome - you were a Paladin/Bard - say Paladin 4/Bard 1 (Arcane Duelist perhaps so you get the feat for free).

Now you have THREE different CL's. A CL of 5 for your gnome abilities, a CL of 1 for your Bard abilities and a CL of 1 as a Paladin (which is a divine CL not arcane but the feat text doesn't actually specify arcane Caster Levels just "caster levels you possess" - for Arcane Strike would this gnome have a CL of 1? 2? (Paladin + Bard) 5? (gnome spell like) 6 (gnome spell like + bard) or 7 (all three)? For Arcane strike the real issue for this gnome would be does she get a +1 or a +2 currently. But in a few levels she would hit 10 caster levels potentially for a +3... (this build might be heading to be a Dragon Disciple for example)

There are a lot of builds that might result in you have a bunch of different caster levels. (any race with spell like abilities + any caster class). If you start adding in traits like Magical Knack it can get even more complicated.

(and there is a further complication - do abilities that raise your effective CL for a specific spell or school of magic modify your # of caster levels for the purposes of Arcane Strike? i.e. that gnome with illusion spells might get a +1 (or a different bonus if you take an alternative trait).

I have two characters with the feat - one is a PFS Dragon Disciple/Paladin/Bard so calculating how his Arcane Strike ability works is quite important for me. The other is a gnome for a Rise of the Runelords campaign (a fighter/sorcerer/dragon disciple who is thinking about taking the feat). In both cases I want to know how to calculate their bonus going forward.

[LazarX]

For Arcane Strike you only count levels in an arcane spellcasting class or classes. This also includes levels of PrC's that advance arcane caster levels.

[Dave Justus]

Spell-like abilities count, but you would only use your highest caster level.

If you have more caster levels that qualify (arcane), you could technically choose which one you wanted to use, but not choosing the best would be silly.

So Paladin levels don't help. Bard or Sorcerer levels obviously count and prestige classes that increase an arcane caster level also count.

[Rycaut]

I'm not disagreeing that it makes sense that you would only count Arcane caster levels nor that you would just count the highest.

but the language of the ability doesn't specify either, hence my question - it just says "for every five caster levels you possess..." - sure it seems likely that the intention is arcane caster levels but it doesn't actually say that. And it doesn't seem overly overpowered to add together a multiclassed arcane character's caster levels from multiple classes (not least because a character with multiple arcane caster classes is likely already fairly sub-optimal) but it certainly does open up potential near abuses from classes like mystic theurge who would be advancing at least two caster levels per character level much of the time. And if racial spell like abilities caster levels stack as well then it certainly is rife for some abuses at lower levels.

That said, the +5 cap limits the abuse - though any flat boost to every attack's damage is rife with opportunities for characters capable of gaining a lot of attacks.