There's a few posts that indicate a belief that the use of the 'patron familiar' option from the familiar folio in conjunction with the 'improved familiar' feat would circumvent the loss of the ability to "Speak with animals of its kind" that is necessary for most familiar archetypes.
Relevant Rules:
Simply stated, which rule trumps which?
A) Does the Improved Familiar's loss of the ability prevent it from gaining it from a different route (or is this really the same route at a different level?)
B) or does the witch's patron imbue it with said ability despite it's previous loss.
C) Does this change if taking a level of witch after already having an improved familiar?
But the familiar doesn't originally have the ability. It's granted by the class ability and level of it's master. As the patron familiar twist isn't a feat, item, or other external or learned source, it would seem to be as intrinsic to the familiar's nature as other standard familiar abilities.
What's your opinion on the 'Polyglot Familiar' feat being used to qualify for archetypes? (as this FAQ seems to indicate that a feat can be used to qualify for an archetype.)
Maybe a better example...
Let's say you play a (variant) multiclass rogue/monk. Both monk and rogue gain Evasion. However, you still can't take two rogue archetypes that both trade away Evasion even though you'd get it twice, because the second set comes from another class, not the rogue class.
Dire rats are animals, as are celestial/entropic/fiendish/resolute familiars.
LOL beat me to it. ;)
It seems that no one has convincingly proved the theory in the original post to be false.
Actually, even normal familiars are not of type animal.
They are Magical Beasts.
Many Pathfinder authors seem to have forgotten this, and there's plenty of examples of spells, feats, and and class features which don't technically work (or work well) because of this.
At least regarding spells, the second part of the Share Spells ability is the trick:
"Share Spells: The wizard may cast a spell with a target of “You” on his familiar (as a touch spell) instead of on himself. A wizard may cast spells on his familiar even if the spells do not normally affect creatures of the familiar's type (magical beast)."As written, a familiar's master can essentially ignore all type restrictions when casting spells on their familiar.
Doesn't help with feats and class abilities, though.
If gaining ‘speaks with other animals’ from some other source interacted with Improved Familiar at all, it would interact by preventing you from taking Improved Familiar. That’s how the archetype stacking rules work; if the feature in question is modified in any way from the base feature, you can’t stack. More likely, it simply has no interaction.
This. You're pretty much out of luck either way.
Sorry, you lost me with the archetype stacking rules (since no archetypes are being stacked).
Patron familiars are an option, but not an archetype and are listed in a separate section than familiar archetypes in the familiar folio.
And improved familiars are, of course, a feat option rather than an archetype.
Ah, that faq was posted 6 months after the original post. Probably clears it up....
but
Just to play devil's advocate:
Some will argue that the 'animal speaker' ability a patron familiar gains at 1st level actually alters the patron spell feature and only alters the 'speak with animals of its own kind' ability if the familiar would have gained it at 7th level. Since Improved familiars don't have it, it's not being altered.
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My read is that the Animal Speaker ability would grant the Improved Familiar the ability to speak with animals of its kind (if it is a kind of animal) at 1st level, since this happens even if the familiar wouldn't get the ability at 7th level. This wouldn't enable the Improved Familiar to take a familiar archetype that requires the Speak With Animals familiar ability - and you don't get the 7th level upgrade to speak with all animals since the familiar wouldn't normally get Speak With Animals.
Improved Familiar removes Speak with Animals, Animal Speaker gives you a new instance. Animal Speaker doesn't alter the original instance, but it doesn't undo the fact that Improved Familiar removed that instance.
(As a GM I might allow the archetype on a case by case basis if I felt it wasn't overpowered, but certainly no pairing Protector with anything that has regeneration...)
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Funny, cause last I checked, Patron Familiar is NOT a Familiar archetype. Thus no stacking occurs. Thus it does in fact work.
That's why I'm saying that Patron Familiar would work with an Improved Familiar (assuming the familiar had an animal type to speak with), but Patron Familiar wouldn't allow you to stack Improved Familiar with an archetype that modified Speak with Animals of Kind.
Patron familiar isn't an archetype and works whether or not you have Speak with Animals of Kind. That's why it says "If it would normally gain this ability at 7th level..."
But Patron Familiar doesn't undo the fact that Improved Familiar is treated like an archetype that removes Speak with Animals of Kind.
Note opening of OP:
There's a few posts that indicate a belief that the use of the 'patron familiar' option from the familiar folio in conjunction with the 'improved familiar' feat would circumvent the loss of the ability to "Speak with animals of its kind" that is necessary for most familiar archetypes.
Thanks for the clarity, everyone. It seems that Improved Familiar and familiar archetypes that modify Speak with Animals of Its Kind are mutually exclusive.
As a GM, I'd interpret that you could just remove your improved familiar's languages in order to qualify for archetypes that replace Speak with Animals of its Kind. Improved Familiar and familiar archetypes seem like they should coexist -- they're both very desirable for players that want a specialized familiar.