Improved Familiar questions

[Arkhios]

So, I had a few questions about taking an Improved Familiar.

First of all, how much does the feat change the base creature?
Familiar table for arcane bond states that they have somewhat fixed intelligence, but what about if the listed creature in Improved Familiar list had higher intelligence than a familiar table states at respectful level, would it get to keep it's own intelligence score, or the one listed in the table (making it dumber than it would normally be) or would its base int increase by the value how much regular familiar gets?

And what about skill ranks. How many skill ranks does a familiar have per hit die? Do they get more at any point and do I get to select these skills myself or are they set to something already?

[stuart haffenden]

Take the base creature and add the values from the table - that's it. If it doesn't cover something like skill points then you don't gain any. Remember they can use your skill ranks so if the familiar had, say UMD +6, once your skill ranks are higher than the creatures they can use your ranks with their bonuses for that skill.

[Arkhios]

Then how does it help a certain familiar archetype, such as pilferer, to have some skills as class skills? I have not played a class with familiar before and therefore I'm not familiar with how familiars work (so many repetitions! :D)

[Zathyr]

They can use your skill ranks but all other bonuses (such as ability score bonuses, the +3 to class skills, feats, etc.) are based off the familiar itself, so their total bonus will likely be different from yours.

As for the intelligence, strict RAW: it drops down to the number in the chart (unless there's official errata to that at this point) but most people (including Pathfinder devs) agree that you should keep its normal Int until/unless the chart gives a higher value.

[Lifat]

Zathyr wrote:

They can use your skill ranks but all other bonuses (such as ability score bonuses, the +3 to class skills, feats, etc.) are based off the familiar itself, so their total bonus will likely be different from yours.

As for the intelligence, strict RAW: it drops down to the number in the chart (unless there's official errata to that at this point) but most people (including Pathfinder devs) agree that you should keep its normal Int until/unless the chart gives a higher value.

QFT! Personally speaking I would never lower the intelligence of a familiar based on the table. I would let the familiar keep it's own intelligence untill the table said it should be higher than.

If you for an example had a familiar with 9 int, then I would change the familiars int when the caster counted as lvl 9 (Making the familiars int 10)

[stuart haffenden]

If you were to lower the familiar's INT you would have to remove existing skill ranks... that'll be a real mess, don't do it.