Can any of these options choose improved familiar?

[asthyril]

There are several ways to get a specific type of familiar. As a druid you can choose eagle, frog, monkey, or serpent from these domains or choose as a sorcerer the serpentine bloodline gets you one at 3rd level.

My question is this: Is there any reason why one of these characters could not choose Improved Familiar and choose any of the new familiars on that list?

[Quandary]

yes, it works fine.

Serpentine BL's Serpentfriend says: ...and you gain a viper familiar using your sorcerer level –2 as your effective wizard level.

Improved Familiar says: Prerequisites: Ability to acquire a new familiar, compatible alignment, sufficiently high level (see below).
Benefit: When choosing a familiar, the creatures listed here are also available to you.

The viper familiar is a familiar. IF's Pre-Req doesn't require that you can choose ANY familiar, so viper fulfills that. IF's benefit says that when choosing a familiar you can use it's list... So even if your limited familiar ability said you can JUST choose X, Y or Z, the IF Feat is over-riding that and saying you can also choose more... just like it's over-riding the normal non-limited base Familiar ability choices. You DO never gain the ability to choose other base familiars, but that just means you can never gain their special bonuses (e.g. +2 Fort, Init, etc) because IF *DOES* let you choose 'Aligned' versions of animal familiars.

If you have any other abilities that state 'your viper familiar gets BLAHBLAHBLAH special abilities', then those only apply to a viper familiar (though an Aligned viper familiar should could), but I'm honestly not aware of any such restricted wording, whether or not the familiar is normally restricted, other abilities referencing it would usually just say 'your familiar'.

[asthyril]

that's what i was thinking. but i was wondering if there were some obscure ruling somewhere that forced you to just choose the celestial/fiendish template of the familiar you're forced to take.

[Dust Raven]

I would say yes you would qualify for Improved Familiar, but the familiar would still need to satisfy the class ability which granted the original familiar. This may include some types which may shapeshift into other forms (such as an imp).

[asthyril]

Dust Raven wrote:

I would say yes you would qualify for Improved Familiar, but the familiar would still need to satisfy the class ability which granted the original familiar. This may include some types which may shapeshift into other forms (such as an imp).

i'm looking for RAW answers, all my characters currently are pfs characters, and i like to make sure they are legal. it doesn't appear that any interpretation of the domains/bloodline i listed and improved familiar would stop you from getting anything you wanted from the improved familiar list you had the level/alignment to qualify for.

anything else would just be gm fiat.