Benefits of High Caster Level

[Jowgen]

Some magic-related mechanics care about caster level, others don't.

I thought it would be a nice thing to have a brief list of the various areas where higher CL provides some benefit.

Spells

More Damage Dice (capped or uncapped)
Longer Duration
Longer Range
Larger Area of Effect
Multiple Effects (e.g. extra ray/missile)
Increased number of permissible targets
Additional effect at threshold
Better chance of beating SR
Stronger resistance against Dispelling
Higher percentile chance of success (e.g. some destinations)


Classes/Feats

Meeting Prerequesites

Magic Items

Item Duplicates Spell that benefits
Higher Saves while Unattended
Higher Resistance to Dispel Magic suppression

Psionics
Effect scaling to higher level version (e.g. psionic dominate)

Shall update this list with contributions, including notable niche cases.

[DrMotives]

Increased maximum range, larger area of effect, increased number of targets

[MaxiDuRaritry]

For psionics, access to additional "spells known" (through augmentation). For instance, psionic dominate goes from dominate person to dominate monster. Likewise, astral construct goes from the equivalent of summon monster I all the way up to summon monster IX. If you have access to enough boosters, you can access 9th level spell equivalents at level 1.

[Jowgen]

Thank you both, added to OP.

I think this should now cover all the general stuff, so I'll start looking for weird outliers, like class abilities that do weird stuff based on CL...

[Miss Disaster]

For a specific set of offensive attack spells (like Telekinesis, Threesteel etc), Caster Level is used as a substitute for Attack Bonus. An Attack Bonus that greatly benefits primary spellcasters.

[Crake]

Identify comes with a better chance of identifying cursed items (5% chance per caster level, so 100% at CL20)

[Miss Disaster]

Riffing off of Crake's observation, a number of divinatory spells give increased chances of "meaningful replies" with a higher CL.

See the spells Augury and Divination.