Can you resurrect an Improved Familiar?

[F5]

Assume you've got a character with an Imp for a familiar, through the Improved Familiar feat. The Imp is an Outsider, and so it should not be possible to return the Imp from the dead with anything short of a wish/miracle. BUT, the description of the familiar specifically says that a slain familiar can be raised, and doesn't lose any levels/HD when it is.

So which set of rules wins? Is it still an outsider when it becomes a familiar? Referring to the description of the summon familiar ability again, it says that the creatures' stats stay the same, but its' type changes to Magical Beast. It seems a little silly for an Imp to be a magical beast, but is this what happens?

In my own game, we've houseruled it so that when an outsider is taken as an Improved Familiar, it gains the Native Outsider subtype, keyed to the home plane of the familiar's master. This avoids the resurrection issues, and etc. But out of curiosity, does anyone have any ideas what the official ruling would be?

 

[Seeten]

Dunno, but I can sure reanimate one. Even adds a lovely template to em.

 

[Diirk]

I looked into this myself actually, I fear for my soon-to-be mephit familiar and don't want to be without it for a year (ouch !). From the SRD entry on the outsider type:

Unlike most other living creatures, an outsider does not have a dual nature—its soul and body form one unit. When an outsider is slain, no soul is set loose. Spells that restore souls to their bodies, such as raise dead, reincarnate, and resurrection, don’t work on an outsider. It takes a different magical effect, such as limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection to restore it to life. An outsider with the native subtype can be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected just as other living creatures can be.

I'd probably treat limited wish as raise dead, wish/miracle as resurrection, true resurrection as... well, true resurrection. Which means you don't have to worry about the expensive material component, but with the xp lost from the familiar dying in the first place compounded with the spell to bring it back... better not be getting it killed too often !

 

[Darkness]

I'd probably treat limited wish as raise dead, wish/miracle as resurrection

Makes sense, as they generally have the same limitations. (Limited wish can simulate 5th-level cleric spells; wish can revive the dead if the body hasn't been destroyed and they lose a level.)

 

[F5]

Thanks for the thoughts, all. It looks like the consensus is that just by virtue of being a familiar, this doesn't override the usual restrictions against resurrecting Outsiders?

That's pretty much what I figured, that the only non-houserule way around it was the wish angle. It is awfully XP-expensive, though....

 

[Darkness]

Wasn't there a raise (or resurrect) outsider spell in MotP?

I suppose you'd have to convert it, as it hasn't been updated to 3.5 AFAIK and raise/etc. spells got a lot more expensive since 3.0, but still.