improved familars+ Familiar Archtypes

[j-train1]

Can you apply Familiar Archetype to Improved Familiars? I have found threads that say no for they can only be applied to animals.

But I have a player who says Sage Archetype is ok for it doesn't apply to animals. I don't have any problem really with what they are doing ,but for my piece of mind I wanted to know what the RAW is?

[KingOfAnything]

Sage familiar is one that would work.

Most other familiar archetypes don't because they trade out speak with animals of its kind and Improved Familiars don't have that.

Improved Familiar wrote:

improved familiars do not gain the ability to speak with other creatures of their kind

[dragonhunterq]

None of the archetypes I can find have any restriction to animals only.
The primary reason you can't take most archetypes is because nearly all of them replace "speak with animals of their kind" and improved familiars don't gain that ability.

Sage (and Emissary) appears to me to be compatible with improved familiars. If I've missed something, I'm sure someone will correct me :)

[j-train1]

Thanks for the quick reply. I figured other DM's could help me out.

[Hubaris]

On the other hand, Improved Familiars are not archetypes so they don't follow a Swap Out Rule.

That and the Figment Familiar specifically calls out:

Figment Familiar wrote:

Because it is a being of its master's own mind, a figment can never serve as a witch's familiar, and it can't use any divination spells or spell-like abilities it may possess.

And the only Familiars with Spell-Like abilities such as Commune are the Improved ones.

[Melkiador]

Improved familiars interaction with archetypes was a bit of an oversight by the design team. But they decided they were ok with it since improved familiars were already pretty strong.

You can look at the Chosen One archetype to see that improved familiars were intended to work with the emissary archetype.