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So my friends and I are getting ready to start a second edition game and I wanted my Awakened Animal character to have been a former character's familiar who'd been holding a chaege of a spell when her spellcaster died, since they always gained intellect as the spellcaster leveled up and there was no information on what happens to a familiar if the spellcaster dies. But my GM says familiars don't gain intelligence at all anymore and so I was hoping to have her be from before the Laws of the world changed, but it is seeming to me that there was no major event in the Lore that explains how everything changed? Am I missing something?
The spellcaster in question was also a wizard/cleric/mystic theurge, which also wouldn't just translate over... I'm considering if nothing major lore-wise seems to have happened, she's instead from some kind of alternate universe or something.
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There is nothing like that, no. The concept that the laws of the world changed as seen by people in Golarion is not a thing.
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Familiars don't gain Intelligence because they don't have an intelligence score. A familiar is just assumed to be about as intelligent as you want/need for it to function. Mind you that any given day you can swap familiar abilities around to give it speech, so a familiar being an intelligent animal is not only likely, it's kind of an unspoken default assumption unless you specifically avoid any ability that requires humanlike intelligence to use.
Familiars in 2e are a little more like a mutable collection of powers, but I feel like making an intelligent animal who used to be a familiar is a perfectly viable way to be awakened.
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Familiars are animals that get some extra stuff, at the end of the day. The rules even say "most familiars were originally animals."
So there's no reason in terms of Golarian lore why this doesn't work. Familiar Animals don't lose the animal trait so there's no reason why they can't be Awakened.
Your GM is misinterpreting the part of the rules where Familiars don't have ability scores (because mechanically they would serve no purpose in this edition) with "they don't have intelligence." By that logic they also don't have Strength/Dexterity/Constitution/Wisdom/Charisma, but I'm pretty sure they can still move, breathe, and percieve.
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I'll agree with all of the above.
Familiars don't have ability scores. That doesn't mean that they don't have intelligence, wisdom, strength, etc... Just that those things are not mechanically defined and are left up to the players to envision without needing numbers assigned.
And the game mechanics are only an approximation of the story being told. A one-off ignoring of the game mechanics in order to make a character's backstory work is perfectly reasonable.
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No one knows how smart I actually am.
Or how long I will continue to do what I am told to.
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Backstories don't have to follow the rules. They don't happen during the campaign, so the events in a backstory do not have to be balanced nor repeatable. A backstory can contain a one-in-a-million freak event, such as a familiar awakening spontaneously. The only requirement is the GM's approval.
One of my players played a former familiar under Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules before the Remaster, What happens with the Familiar if the master die? (Leshy Version) comment #7. Furthermore, the unusual origin of that former familiar let me throw in another one-in-a-million freak event and she became a god for plot purposes: How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion? comment #59. I am glad I went along with the origin story.
Familiars don't gain Intelligence because they don't have an intelligence score. A familiar is just assumed to be about as intelligent as you want/need for it to function. Mind you that any given day you can swap familiar abilities around to give it speech, so a familiar being an intelligent animal is not only likely, it's kind of an unspoken default assumption unless you specifically avoid any ability that requires humanlike intelligence to use.
Familiars in 2e are a little more like a mutable collection of powers, but I feel like making an intelligent animal who used to be a familiar is a perfectly viable way to be awakened.
I have a long time player, who played a wizard in Rise of the Runelords with a hedgehog familiar named Chi CHi that became a party favorite. I am currently preping to run Seven Dooms next, and this player pitched the idea of creating an awakened animal version of CHi Chi to be his character for the arc.
There is a lot of great opportunity for good storytelling in the idea that some rare familiars might gain independence when their master dies, and IMO it definitely fits in with one of the background themes of Golarion that sometimes, magic be weird and does rare unique things. I would encourage any GM to consider this a viable path for a player that is attached to a familiar and wants to move it forward in a story.
The spellcaster in question was also a wizard/cleric/mystic theurge, which also wouldn't just translate over... I'm considering if nothing major lore-wise seems to have happened, she's instead from some kind of alternate universe or something.
Cleric or wizard with a multiclass archetype should work well enough.
In addition to what others have said, there is clear precedence within the setting for familiars being intelligent.
Nothing in any edition of this game has changed or even challenged that.
There are numeeous sapient familiars that have been published all over 2nd Edition Paizo products, so we know that they exist, at least in the Lost Omens setting.
Just look at Griftyglim of Absalom, Omira’s raven familiar who perches in her shop's rafters to engage customers in idle banter, seeking information and rumors and pushing wares.
Artokus Kirran has a meerkat familiar in Thuvia that teaches university students about insects and alchemy and that regularly has intelligent conversations with humanoids.
Or any of the other familiars at Kitten's Slumber in the Grand Bazaar that interact with customers and help to maintain the place all the time.
I'll mention the lore of Poppets. Most are simple constructs. Poppets can become familiars. And occasionally something will happen that gives them enough spark of life to elevate them to full Ancestry status.
No one knows how smart I actually am.
Or how long I will continue to do what I am told to.
That "independent" ability comes with a dark side.
I’m now imagining the cliche of a familiar being smarter than their master. Or even responsible for them. ‘I’m Fluffy. This is my wizard, Argent. He’s a nice enough lad but a bit odd so I try to keep him on a steady keel. Put that down, younknow better than drinking anything Fijit the Mad has in her pack!’
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In PFS1 my faerie dragon familiar did some major negotiating with a certain Time Dragon Scarab Sage to avert them going all berserk on the party. You know, just us dragons among each others.
Didn't hurt that due to PF1 shenanigans that familiar had more skills than two normal characters put together.
Backstories don't have to follow the rules.
This is a really good point. It's nice if the backstory is halfway plausible of course. If your backstory has you casting fifth-rank spells but now you're level 1, there needs to be some explanation for that. But let's not sweat the fine print.
I always like the backstory that the person may be old/experienced, but it's in something completely irrelevant to being an adventurer. Maybe when he was a familiar this Leshy mostly helped in picking herbs and killing bugs in the druid's grove, but after 50 years the druid has gone missing and you are on a quest to find then. Your ginger-harvesting lore and bug-squashing lore isn't relevant to being a Leshy rogue. The animal familiar is always used to being the assistant but not the combatant so he's level 1.
IIRC it's why Ezren is a surprisingly old level 1 wizard. He was a merchant for most of his life, and hit his midlife crisis with a spellbook instead of buying a Mazda.