Familiars and master death

[James Vacca]

So what happens to a familiar when its master dies? I'm playing a witch in a home campaign and I ran afoul of some phase spiders. After a reincarnate spell, I'm back on my new feet but what happened to my familiar in that interim? Is he gone? dead? just a normal snake now? what?

[David Thomassen]

Familiar Teaching Familiar::

A witch's familiar can learn spells from another witch's familiar. To accomplish this, the familiars must spend one hour per level of the spell being taught in communion with one another. At the end of this time, the witch whose familiar is learning a spell must make a Spellcraft check (DC 15 + spell level). If the check succeeds, the familiar has learned the spell and the witch may utilize it the next time she prepares spells. If the check fails, the familiar has failed to learn the spell and cannot try to learn that spell again until the witch has gained another rank in Spellcraft. Most witches require a spell of equal or greater level in return for this service. If a familiar belongs to a witch that has died, it only retains its knowledge of spells for 24 hours, during which time it is possible to coerce or bribe the familiar into teaching its spells to another, subject to GM discretion.

So 24 hours to get you back to life or your familar becomes becomes a normal snake.

[Another Mr White]

Actually, that reference only states that they retain their spell knowledge for only 24 hours after the death of their master.

I came across this thread searching for the answer to this question, but with the assumption that the master DOESN'T get raised. There is nothing in the rules that I could find (and I spent several hours searching) that details what happens to a familiar after the master's death.

My read of the situation is that the former familiar obviously loses access to any abilities related to actually having a master, but otherwise remains a magical beast. Which creates all sorts of problems with communication as they now cannot be affected by speak with animal. Tongues doesn't works because "Tongues does not enable the subject to speak with creatures who don’t speak." You can't use Awaken because they're not an animal any more. Familiars kind of get the short end of the stick if their master dies on them.

But has anyone found anything more on this subject?

[Fuzzy-Wuzzy]

FAQ wrote:

Once dismissed, an animal familiar is just a normal animal of its type (a special familiar from the Improved Familiar feat reverts to a normal creature of its type). Whether or not it wants to remain with you is up to your GM and probably based on how you treated the creature while it was your familiar.

I for one would find it odd if your master's death left you more magical than being dismissed. It's not impossible---arguably the familiar is still attached to its master's dead soul---but definitely odd.

[Melkiador]

When you die, you just get moved to another plane. And the familiar bond seems to continue if you are on a different plane.

Witches just have special rules not attached to most familiars.

[Another Mr White]

On a related note, it looks like the PCs will be dealing with the communication barrier by crafting a Gold Nodule Ioun Stone for it.