practiced spellcaster and artificers

[Yogibear41]

Does practiced spell caster make up the different for a multi-class artificer when it comes to his crafting caster level? For example would an artificer 3/fighter 3 with practiced spell caster have an effective crafting level of 8 or 5?

[avr]

By RAW I think it has no effect on artificers at all; they don't have a real caster level, only a maximum caster level they can create items at. That gets a bit tortured when the rules start talking about their infusions, admittedly.