Iconics expert question


Product Discussion


This night I met all the iconics here:

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics

There are 31 plus 6 occult ones.
Ok, the occult ones are a group of theirself, but if you have to group somehow the base 31 iconics, then how would you do that?

Further, 31 is not dividable, it is a prime number.
Difficult job, right?

Class based grouping?

Thanks in advance.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Divine/arcane/beatstick/skillmonkey.


What is skillmoney?

Can anybody match all the iconic names to the four categories?


Kyra / Other Legal Pregens / Everyone Else. You always need to print more Kyras than the other pregens, as she's the most popular one for filling out parties in PFS. (In my experience.)

Myfly wrote:
What is skillmoney?

A skill monkey is a character or class that can handle many skill checks. (It's not the term I would pick first, but then again I tend to think more in terms of more specific roles than the four classic classes. That gives you things like "face" and "scout" and "trap specialist" and such.)

In the classic four D&D character classes, the Thief or Rogue is a skill monkey. (The other three are Fighter, Cleric, and Magic User/Wizard.)

Myfly wrote:
Can anybody match all the iconic names to the four categories?

A lot of the classes are hybrids, so it depends on how they're built and I'm not all that familiar with the sample iconic builds. Some very general ideas based on class:

Martial/Beatstick: Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Gunslinger

Divine Caster: Cleric, Druid, Oracle

Arcane Caster: Wizard, Sorcerer, Witch

Specialist/Skill Monkey: Rogue, Bard, Investigator


???


In PFS (roleplaying, not the ACG) some of the iconics are the pregenerated characters that people without a character have to use. It's some and not all because not all of the iconics have a legal pregen. In my experience, Kyra is the most commonly used pregen because healing. Whether she's a good choice for any specific party or even for healing is beyond this discussion, but it is what I've observed in what is, admittedly, a very small sample of pregen usage.

So when figuring out what to print for my PFS game night packet, I'd print more Kyras than the other legal pregens and leave the rest out.

Aside: You asked a very generic and open ended question about some very generic characters that are used in many, many different ways by Paizo but mostly in artwork for their RPG. Expect a wide range of responses. :)


Parody wrote:

Kyra / Other Legal Pregens / Everyone Else. You always need to print more Kyras than the other pregens, as she's the most popular one for filling out parties in PFS. (In my experience.)

Myfly wrote:
What is skillmoney?

A skill monkey is a character or class that can handle many skill checks. (It's not the term I would pick first, but then again I tend to think more in terms of more specific roles than the four classic classes. That gives you things like "face" and "scout" and "trap specialist" and such.)

In the classic four D&D character classes, the Thief or Rogue is a skill monkey. (The other three are Fighter, Cleric, and Magic User/Wizard.)

Myfly wrote:
Can anybody match all the iconic names to the four categories?

A lot of the classes are hybrids, so it depends on how they're built and I'm not all that familiar with the sample iconic builds. Some very general ideas based on class:

Martial/Beatstick: Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Gunslinger

Divine Caster: Cleric, Druid, Oracle

Arcane Caster: Wizard, Sorcerer, Witch

Specialist/Skill Monkey: Rogue, Bard, Investigator

This sounds better to me...

But could you please sort the 37 (31+6) iconic names shown here
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics
To your 4 groups: arcane, divine, beatstick and skillmonkey


Myfly wrote:

This sounds better to me...

But could you please sort the 37 (31+6) iconic names shown here
http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics
To your 4 groups: arcane, divine, beatstick and skillmonkey

I won't. I gave my answer for that already:

Parody wrote:
A lot of the classes are hybrids, so it depends on how they're built...

You're more likely to get filtering like that from one of the RPG-oriented forums. Maybe Campaign Setting General?

(Also, FWIW, those aren't the terms I would have picked for those groupings. Gorbacz picked them.)


Myfly, a lot of the characters are not going to fit nicely into one of the four categories, especially when it comes to the Advanced Class Guide "hybrid" classes and the Occult classes (especially occult since they introduce an entirely new type of magic that isn't divine or arcane). However, if you can't look at the list of Iconics and match up the class tag for each entry with Parody's list, here (even added a few):

Martial/Beatstick: Valeros, Amiri, Sajan, Seelah, Harsk, Lirianne, Alain, Hayato, Jirelle, Kess

Divine Caster: Kyra, Lini, Alahazra

Arcane Caster: Ezren, Seoni, Feiya, Enora

Specialist/Skill Monkey: Merisiel, Lem, Quinn

Grand Lodge

Myfly wrote:
To your 4 groups: arcane, divine, beatstick and skillmonkey

You could use:

Arcane, Divine, Martial, Skill-based

But I'd follow the others' suggestion, ask in the RPG forums. While I think (okay, I'm assuming) that your focus is the card game, these classes are from the RPG. And as such, they are more complicated than a character card that allows them to fit into the ACG. So if you're looking for information and sorting of all the iconic classes, you'll find it in the RPG boards.


Myfly wrote:


Ok, the occult ones are a group of theirself, but if you have to group somehow the base 31 iconics, then how would you do that?

Grouping for what purpose?


By the way, I used those "Meet the Iconics" blog posts to create this list about the Iconics to make "finding" them easier.


How about sorting them by their release date given in

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics

Does it make sense? Correct release date there given?


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Myfly wrote:

How about sorting them by their release date ...

Does it make sense?

We can't answer if it makes sense until you tell us why you want to group them.


Hawkmoon269 wrote:
By the way, I used those "Meet the Iconics" blog posts to create this list about the Iconics to make "finding" them easier.

I've seen that before but not sure I said thank you at the time. So thank you for that just in case!


MyFly by the way good sir you ARE incredibly Teutonic

Always trying to ascribe order and rules to things, numbers of this, groupings of that.

I used to work with the German Navy a little and would tease them mercilessly about that cultural prediliction

Of course I would also tease the Dutch for being ersatz German....

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Ouch, calling the Dutch "Ersatz Germans" is about as much of a shiv between the ribs as calling Scotsmen "Ginger English" is...

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Someone needs to get this guy a PREMIUM answer to his question, post haste!

WHO EXISTS BEYOND THE NEED FOR LABELS? ...THIS GUY.


Myfly wrote:

How about sorting them by their release date given in

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics

Does it make sense? Correct release date there given?

At one point, I had them sorted by when the appeared in the card game. But after debate, I decided alphabetical was best. Someone trying to use the list for reference might not know when they appeared in the card game or when they first appeared on the blog or when they first appeared in the RPG source material. And sorting by blog or by RPG date would cause a few problems:

1. Valeros actually has two appearance in the blog. This is his first one but the one I used in the list gives much more detail and background to him.

2. Seltyiel first appeared as an Eldrtich Knight in the source material before reappearing as the iconic Magus.

So, in the end, I decided to use alphabetical order. I'm waiting for the final Occult iconic to get an entry before I resort the order, which is why the occult ones are all at the bottom right now.

Grand Lodge

Kineticist - Yoon
Medium - Erasmus
Mesmerist - Meligaster
Occultist - Mavaro
Psychic - Rivani
Spiritualist - Estra (Honaire is her Phantom)

Since I am an RPGer first, I have always listed and grouped the characters by their class alphabetically after initially grouping them by the set they were released in. Similar to how they were grouped in the pre-gen download.

Core - Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer and Wizard. The Core 11 classes. Followed by ...

Ultimate (books-Combat then Magic) - Gunfighter, Ninja, Samurai. Then Magus (and Alchemist, Inquisitor, Oracle, Summoner and Witch. But I put those more with the Advanced books.)

Advanced (books-Players' then Class) - Alchemist, Cavalier, Inquisitor, Oracle, Summoner and Witch. Then Arcanist, Bloodrager, Brawler, Hunter, Investigator, Shaman, Skald, Slayer, Swashbuckler and Warpriest.

Occult - Kineticist, Medium, Mesmerist, Occultist, Psychic and Spiritualist

Advanced Class Guide took the previous classes and mashed two to become one for each of those classes.

Occult are new with new concepts.

EDIT: Oh, and the reasoning for the methodology of my sort is how they appear in the source books. By book then by class in the book. Alphabetical by name is meaningless for me as I want to know where they come from and what category they fit in.

Sovereign Court

jduteau wrote:
Myfly wrote:

How about sorting them by their release date ...

Does it make sense?
We can't answer if it makes sense until you tell us why you want to group them.

This.

We don't know if it makes sense. If you want to know who is the most powerful, of course it doesn't. If you just want them organized in some manner, of course it does. Without knowing why you want it, we can't help.


I would like to chime in. I'm a single player who is running a campaign based on the cartoon GI Joe. This campaign uses all the Iconics. It's them vs. the world.
So as to be more manageable I've broken them down into six person strike teams that switch between each other. Need a fast team, cavalier and Samurai backing up the monk, ninja barbarian and (?) Somebody else that can keep up.
Are there any other strike teams that can be worked out?

Is that kind of what was asked by the Op?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Theryon Stormrune wrote:
Myfly wrote:
To your 4 groups: arcane, divine, beatstick and skillmonkey

You could use:

Arcane, Divine, Martial, Skill-based

One might note that there's a similar division in our RPG product line: Ultimate Magic focuses on the first two, Ultimate Combat on the third, and Ultimate Intrigue on the last.


A. ones that are useful
2. ones that are marginal
D. ones that would make a new player never play again


I think a timeline would do it.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics

So first released,

Seoni, then Merisiel, then Kyra ... Right?
Where do i find their official release dates?

Or can anyone list them chronically?

Last question... So more and more iconics will be released in the future, right?
Could there a number of iconics per year ratio estimated?


Myfly wrote:

Where do i find their official release dates?

Or can anyone list them chronically?

Last question... So more and more iconics will be released in the future, right?
Could there a number of iconics per year ratio estimated?

Here are the release dates of each book and the number of Iconic characters in each:

Core Rulebook, 11: June 2009
Advanced Player's Guide, 6: August 2010
Ultimate Magic, 1: April 2011
Ultimate Combat, 3: August 2011
Advanced Class Guide, 10: August 2014
Occult Adventures, 6: July 2015
Ultimate Intrigue, 1(?): Spring 2016

There's only been one new class announced for UI which is pretty much guaranteed to have an Iconic. Don't know if the book may also have a few other things that may have Iconics like alternate classes like the Ninja and such.

Going off of a flat average up through 2015, Paizo has released 5 new Iconic characters per year. I'm sure they'll only release more classes, and in effect more Iconics, when they feel there is a niche that isn't currently being covered well enough by existing classes. After 2010 saw the release of class Archetypes, there was a slowdown in the release of new base classes until 2014. Personally, I think getting 16 new base classes in the last two years was a bit of a fluke and the frequency is probably going to slow down again in the next few years.

Grand Lodge

Myfly wrote:

I think a timeline would do it.

http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics

So first released,

Seoni, then Merisiel, then Kyra ... Right?
Where do i find their official release dates?

Or can anyone list them chronically?

Last question... So more and more iconics will be released in the future, right?
Could there a number of iconics per year ratio estimated?

I think you're not talking release dates which pluvia has posted but introduction dates in the blog? If you're going to want that, you (as well as us) can go through the blog to scrape that info up. If you are talking release dates, you just need to go back to the books that were published (again, that pluvia posted).

The thing about what you're asking is what is the purpose for your sorting them? If you simply want them when they were introduced to us, like I said, the Paizo blog has most of it if you go back through it all. If you're looking at the groupings they were released in, you have that. You have to understand that most of us don't look at the characters as characters but representation of the classes.

And for your last question ... why? Why quantify it? It doesn't work that way. (A couple years ago, we had none.)

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

If you want a reverse chronologcial listing of their writeups, go here. (You'll notice that Valeros has two entries, because when we started, we didn't offer the amount of detail we do now.)

You should also note that the order they were written up does not always coincide with the order in which they appeared in products. Feiya, Imrijka, and Balazar didn't get their stories told for a bit.

And "the order in which they appeared in products" may mean different things to different people. The 11 iconics from the Core Rulebook appeared on the covers of Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes long before the Core Rulebook existed. And Seltyiel appeared as the quasi-iconic Eldritch Knight in the Core Rulebook before he became the iconic Magus in Ultimate Magic.


If you check the Community Use Registry, you'll see there's a file called "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Meet the Iconics." I pulled together all the characters currently featured in PACG games and organized them alphabetically inside a PDF with artwork (okay, the goblins are listed in the back as promo characters.) I planned on updating the guide whenever new PACG character line-ups are announced. So far, character announcements have been made in advance of any new title launches, so I can have the guide current with any upcoming release.

If there's a desire to present the information in another format eg - character roles like "arcane", "martial", etc - I can just add a few charts to the document for reference purposes, and users would still have to look up the characters alphabetically to read their origin stories. Someone would need to provide me with the lists, and there would have to be some general agreement among the community that the listings are accurate and useful.

I also do a guide called "Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Golarion Deities" that provides just enough background to give players context for the Blessing cards, something which is sorely lacking in the card game for a player unfamiliar with the RPG. Since each Adventure Deck comes with new blessings, I have to wait until the last deck is released in the Adventure Path before I can update the document with blessing specific to that Adventure Path - otherwise, I'd be updating the document monthly with each release. For example, the document in its current state is very helpful for Wrath of the Righteous since most of the blessings are represented, but it's not going to include any information about Nocticula, who has a blessing in AD4, until I update the document after the Adventure Path is concluded. And yes, for those who are worried, I don't provide massive spoiler information that ruins the plot of the Adventure Deck.

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