As a magical child, does my familiar lose the ability to understand Common if its advanced form doesn't know Common?

[Paksarra]

I'm playing a Magical Child Vigilante. One of my archetype features is a familiar that becomes a variety of advanced familiars as I level. Its base social form is a mouse and its first vigilante form is a Pyrausta.

From my understanding, a familiar gains a language of your choice, unless it knows a language already. As a mouse the familiar understood a language of my choice-- Common-- even though it couldn't speak. As a pyrausta, the familiar can speak and understand the language from its stat block: Draconic. I have no skill points invested in Linguistics.

Does this mean that, when I go into my vigilante identity, my familiar somehow forgets how to understand Common because its only language is now Draconic? Or does it gain Draconic in addition to Common while in that form?

[Lucy_Valentine]

"From my understanding, a familiar gains a language of your choice, unless it knows a language already."

Where are you getting that from? Because I'm pretty confident familiars don't have that (unless the specific animal type has it, like Ravens and Thrushes), and I can't find it in the rules, and I couldn't find it in the Magical Child rules either.

[Kitty Catoblepas]

Lucy_Valentine wrote:

"From my understanding, a familiar gains a language of your choice, unless it knows a language already."

Where are you getting that from? Because I'm pretty confident familiars don't have that (unless the specific animal type has it, like Ravens and Thrushes), and I can't find it in the rules, and I couldn't find it in the Magical Child rules either.

https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lc1y?Monkey-See-Monkey-Do-An-FAQ- on-Intelligent

This states that an animal with Int 3+ gains a language, even if it does not have the ability to speak.

In addition, the description of the Intelligence score in the Core Rulebook states that characters with 3+ Intelligence can read and speak a language.

[David knott 242]

Also, since the Pyrausta is a new form of an existing familiar and not a new familiar, you should ignore any reference to its specific languages (so it does not immediately learn Draconic or forget Common). However, since there is no "can't speak" reference next to its language entry, the familiar would gain the ability to speak while in Pyrausta form.

[Paksarra]

David knott 242 wrote:

Also, since the Pyrausta is a new form of an existing familiar and not a new familiar, you should ignore any reference to its specific languages (so it does not immediately learn Draconic or forget Common). However, since there is no "can't speak" reference next to its language entry, the familiar would gain the ability to speak while in Pyrausta form.

Thanks!

This makes perfect sense logically, too-- he's turning into a really small dragon, but he wasn't born/raised a dragon the way a pyrausta familiar typically would be, so how would he learn Draconic? (I mean, outside of it somehow being instinctive to dragons.)

[Kitty Catoblepas]

Paksarra wrote:

David knott 242 wrote:

Also, since the Pyrausta is a new form of an existing familiar and not a new familiar, you should ignore any reference to its specific languages (so it does not immediately learn Draconic or forget Common). However, since there is no "can't speak" reference next to its language entry, the familiar would gain the ability to speak while in Pyrausta form.

...so how would he learn Draconic?

-- If you have ranks in Linguistics, presumably he would learn languages based on the number of ranks you have.

-- At level 13, he would gain 12 Intelligence, allowing him to learn a new language, unless...

-- You take the Sage archetype, which would allow him to have is own ranks in Linguistics and progress Intelligence at a faster rate (12 Int at level 7).

But would it gain the ability to answer rhetorical questions?