Familiar Archetypes

Animal archetypes modify familiars’ standard abilities, similar to how class archetypes modify player characters’ class features. These archetypes function by swapping out certain abilities that are common to standard familiars and replacing them with new abilities tailored to a particular theme. Where levels are referenced in archetype descriptions, they refer to the class level of the PC master in whichever class grants the familiar as a class feature.

Shapechanging Familiars: Familiars that can take various forms, such as the magical child’s animal guide, imps, and quasits, must have the same archetype for each form, and it must be legal for all of those forms (meaning if any form is an improved familiar, it can’t take archetypes that don’t stack with improved familiar).

Improved Familiars Restriction: The abilities of an improved familiar don’t stack with those of any familiar archetype that alters or replaces the variable bonus a familiar grants its master or speak with animals of its kind. (A leshy warden’s leshy familiar doesn’t grant a variable bonus or speak with animals of its kind, so it doesn’t have abilities that stack with those familiar archetypes.)

scroll to top