Does this work? Can my familiar cast at a higher level than I do? D&D 3.5

[PeyEll]

The obtain familiar feat specifies that you add your arcane caster level from all your arcane classes to determine the familiar's abilities such as bonuses to natural armor, intelligence and improved evasion etc. This seems like it could be taken advantage of with feats like practiced spellcaster or classes that have fast caster level progression.

In my current game, I am playing a lvl 5 factotum, level 6 chameleon, and have taken obtain familiar (along with improved familiar). Chameleons have an arcane caster level of twice their class level. This means that, if I take practiced spellcaster (for factotum) as my daily floating feat, and prepare my arcane focus for the day, my familiar's abilities are calculated as though I was a level 21 caster (5+4+12). If I understand this correctly, that means my familiar starts using the epic level table for familiar bonuses, has a natural armor bonus of +11, an int of 16 and "gains the benefit of familiar spell feat". There's no way I qualify for epic level feats myself, nor do I qualify for the int requirement, but when it says "gain the benefit of", that means I don't need to meet the requirements and I don't actually get the feat, I just get everything in the "benefit" section of the feat description.

That means my familiar gets to cast one of the arcane spells I know as a spell like ability once per day at a caster level "equal to the character's caster level".

This is where I start to have questions.

1)What is my character's caster level for the purpose of this ability? Does it still use the sum of my arcane classes? If I have to pick one, can I pick the higher of the two, or would I be forced to use the more consistent of the two (my factotum caster level)

2) Normally, an epic wizard would get this ability for his familiar, make the choice of which spell the familiar gets as he levels, and then be stuck with it. Due to how chameleons work, and the floating practiced spellcaster feat, I only get my extra arcane caster levels as I prepare my chameleon abilities in the morning, meaning my caster level fluctuates throughout the day. Does this mean I could select a new spell for the "familiar spell" benefit each morning when the familiar dips in power then rises back up to qualify for the benefit again?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

[FearlessGnome]

Sadly, Chameleon has a very unfortunate paragraph that says that no class abilities except the floating feat can be used to qualify for anything ever ever. You can ask your DM to remove that stupid limitation, especially if you are content to use Arcane Focus every day, but by RAW you couldn't use your Chameleon levels for Obtain familiar.

Even if that's allowed though, your Familiar's abilities are not based on caster levels, just class levels. Otherwise you could just use magical items/spells etc that raise casterlevel to boost your familiar, which even a Sorcerer20 could do.

[PeyEll]

OK, so I should look at class level instead of caster level. That's disappointing.

I still think I have a strong argument for adding the chameleon class levels. I can't use chameleon's ability focus to "qualify" for the feat, but I don't need to. I got it from factotum before even taking chameleon. Nothing in the chameleon's ability focus limitation specifies that it can't amplify the numerical effects of an existing feat/ability does it?

[FearlessGnome]

Huh. Yeah, that should work.