Does anyone know why maulers can't talk?

[Senko]

I'm curious why the mauler archetype was specified as being unable to speak not just the usual replacing of speak with animal to prevent familiar archetype stacking but is specifically called out as never being able to gain a way for it to speak even if its of a species that normally can. Seeing as chatting to a familiar is a big draw for my having one I'm curious if anyone know's why this one particular archetype got denied the ability to do so?

[Mark Hoover 330]

I'd guess it's to play up the angle of these familiars being feral, bloodthirsty maulers as opposed to helpful servants of PCs.

[Senko]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

I'd guess it's to play up the angle of these familiars being feral, bloodthirsty maulers as opposed to helpful servants of PCs.

Perhaps though I'd go more "Less interested in complex conversations a mauler's prefered topics of conversation deal with X" myself and it seems a really harsh penalty to take away speech from those which can speak normally. Even then you can't even have it warn people away from its human and it replaces talk with its own kind so it feels like your really ripping away things from the animal thematically. Not talking mechanics here but a literal quoth the raven nevermore, it can't even talk to other ravens when it could before.

[zza ni]

they all got the 'Silent Bob' syndrome.

[Name Violation]

Too busy with them gains to speak.
Gotta pump iron, no time to talk.

[Chell Raighn]

Quite frankly “speak with animals of its kind” being a “class feature” of the familiar never made any sense from the start… let alone the fact that it can be replaced by archetypes or lost as an improved familiar. That should have just always been an automatic feature of the animal type.

[Jokey the Unfunny Comedian]

"While you were learning to talk, I was studying the claw."

[Temperans]

Think of the process of making a familiar as modifying the animal to think differently. When you think of it that way, then it makes sense for it to gain/lose the ability to talk with animals of its kind based on how you affected its mind.

In the case of Mauler, you made your familiar more feral and bestial, thus unable to think like animals of its kind. But then you have things like Valet, that you have made to be more friendly towards your allies, thus making them think more like a person than a simple animal.

You can kind of see it with animals that have been raised by humans to be pets behaving different from wild animals. Then ramp that up to 11 because magic.