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This may have been addressed before, but my search-fu is weak.
Each Adventure Path features four Iconics in its artwork. My question is: Does Paizo actually use those (or any) Iconics when playtesting their adventures, or do they use characters of their own invention?
I don't have a problem either way, I am just curious.
The iconics appear in the AP art and in the Pathfinder comics. They are also in the new Pathfinder Legends audio products. They also appear in the card game. This list is likely not comprehensive, but Paizo do seem to get a lot of wear out of them. :D
When I run Pathfinder for a convention game, I generally use the iconics, even if I have to convert them to another system (usually Savage Worlds). Stats for most of the main iconics can be found in the back of the NPC codex if you did want to use them.
Creative Director
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The iconics' primary purpose are to serve as mascots, more or less, for our artwork, both to help establish a brand for Pathfinder (if you se Merisiel or Seoni or Valeros or Seelah or whoever in art, you recognize it as Paizo art), but also as shortcuts for our artists, many of whom don't play the game and don't understand the difference between a ranger and a paladin or a wizard and a sorcerer. Rather thatn type a few hundred words each time we illustrate one, we can show them an iconic and say "Paint a picture of her fighting a troll in a swamp."
They're also statted up for use as pregen characters in the Pathfinder Society organized play program, so that if someone shows up to an event for the first time and doesn't have a character to play, they can grab one of the iconics and they're ready to go.
We don't use them to playtest adventures, generally. In fact, we don't generally playtest adventures at all—that's the author's job. The development process is as involved and detailed and good at catching problems as are playtests... sometimes better at it, in fact.
That said, when I write adventures I generally playtest them by allowing the players to build their own characters.
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They're also statted up for use as pregen characters in the Pathfinder Society organized play program, so that if someone shows up to an event for the first time and doesn't have a character to play, they can grab one of the iconics and they're ready to go.
Yup, we're constantly joking that Kyra the Cleric is the most experienced adventurer in Golarion. She should be level 10 million by now, with all the xp she's earned in Pathfinder Society play.