Urkgh. OOmph. *Drags in a large, fresh bharal* Okay, where do you want this? Er, sorry about the bloodstains.
James,
Since you said paladins are your least favorite core class,
Wait, what? Seriously? But it is the best designed martial class in the game and always brings awesome roleplaying opportunities (for good or bad)!
I don't get it. :(
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While we're on the topic of paladins, what were the most common paladin patrons in ancient Azlant? I assume Shelyn and Abadar, since they've been explicitly mentioned to have originated as Azlanti deities, but I'm wondering if others were involved (I understand if this topic is one that simply hasn't been developed enough yet to give a concise answer).
Also, I'm debating adding mythic rules to a campaign idea I have which is basically "The PCs are various people who through sheer luck or some divine providence, survived Earthfall." The idea is a post-apocalyptic campaign set during the Age of Darkness (I've been watching way too much Adventure Time lately), and figure that mythic would probably be a requirement for a story like this, since this is a time when folks like Aroden and Old-Mage Jatembe are beginning their legends. Good idea? Bad idea? The sort of theme I have in mind is "The world hasn't ended...it has changed."
The idea that PCs need every advantage they can get presupposes the existence of a GM who is taking every advantage to TPK them. That's not the type of game I like to play or run. The best way to run is a game where the players are free to build what they want because they trust the GM that he/she will throw challenging and entertaining encounters their way but isn't all about trying to "win."
^^ This ^^
On to some questions...
The 'free will' thing interests me, as well... up to now, I considered aligned outsiders to principally have free will, but with a set of strong instincts pulling them towards acts fitting their alignment subtypes, making out-of-alignment actions very counter-intuitive for them. It just feels 'wrong' (with a capital W).
In addition, I'd like to ask a few more questions regarding Arueshalae, if I may...
1)
2)
Of course, this might be reinforcing her 'feeding' instincts, so it still could result in a throwback...
Hi JJ, ever heard about the Persian Shadhavar or Shadow Unicorn?
Do you like the creature?
Would this creature make a chance of ever appearing inside a Bestiary (AP or Hard Cover Bestiary) or not?
Is independent publishing a viable option for a fiction author?
How hard would you say it is for an aspiring writer to get his first work published?
I've heard horror stories about publishers rejecting writers time and again or subjecting them to horrid conditions of different kinds, as well as tales of independent publishing starting to turn publishing agencies obsolete with the advent of the advancements brought about by the internet and some other forms of digital media. I wouldn't want to get my hopes too high, but neither do I want my ambitions wholly crushed since I have been doing my thing for five years now.
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Then you've been doing it wrong. The Pazio Police will be by momentarily to give you your demerits.That's weird. I've been pronouncing it "Kar-Zog".How do you pronounce Karzoug's name? Car-ZOOG orThe first one.Car-ZOWG?
Can we have stats for "The Paizo Police"?
On to some questions...The 'free will' thing interests me, as well... up to now, I considered aligned outsiders to principally have free will, but with a set of strong instincts pulling them towards acts fitting their alignment subtypes, making out-of-alignment actions very counter-intuitive for them. It just feels 'wrong' (with a capital W).
In addition, I'd like to ask a few more questions regarding Arueshalae, if I may...
1) ** spoiler omitted **
2) ** spoiler omitted **
IANJ, but wanted to throw my expertise on this one. In response to your second question
How are the benchmark animal companion stats generated? My GM wants my dinosaur mount to be a mega raptor, but they don't appear to have animal companion stats.
Is it the 19th yet?
Did you have a hand in helping to design the Investigator since it's conceptually part Alchemist?
Creative Director
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James,
Since you said paladins are your least favorite core class,Wait, what? Seriously? But it is the best designed martial class in the game and always brings awesome roleplaying opportunities (for good or bad)!
I don't get it. :(
We've already established that a lot of our opinions and takes on the game are quite diamterically opposed, magnuskin, so should it surprise you?
Yes. The paladin is my least favorite of the base classes. Note that is NOT the same as saying I don't like the paladin or think it's poorly designed.
I don't like paladins because they're magnets for disruptive players, both the player of the paladin (who often uses the paladin's code to justify antagonsitc roleplaying choices that make the paladin not fit into the party) or the other players (who take the presence of a paladin as an invitation to make that player fall from grace and constantly try to play alignment police). I don't see this type of behavior with other lawful good characters. But I've seen it pretty much EVERY TIME I've seen a paladin played in games over the past 3 decades or so. Furthermore, paladins constrict story options more than any other class, including the assassin.
And beyond that, since my favorite type of character to play is a non-lawful character (my favorite alignment to play is chaotic good), the paladin is just kinda built to not appeal to me aesthetically.
The ONE TIME I've seen a paladin not be disruptive is Tim Nightengale's character in my current Sands of the Scorpion God campaign, but even then we've had a few sessions here and there where not much gets done because of arguments between players on how to handle tomb robbing and the like... but since Tim and the rest of the players in that group (Rob, Wes, Erik, and Jason) are such great roleplayers... the paladin has actually been working out. And Tim's done a lot of awesome work with the character to lessen my dislike of them.
But still. I have to have one least-favorite class in the game. Paladin is it.
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Creative Director
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6) Arueshalae has free will now that she's risen from being a demon. As a result, whether or not she's "shared" isn't up to Desna. Whether or not Arueshalae would be interested in participating in other rituals depends on her.1) Could you expand more on the "free will" element with how it relates to demons as you see them? Is this essentially a confirmation that because of what they are, demons are "driven" to particular acts on the Chaotic Evil side of the alignment chart?
The rest will look more at Cernunnos (he's pretty much my favourite Empyreal Lord after seeing his B4 writeup).
2) How do Cernunnos' followers interact with the followers of Erastil?
3) Is there a particular reason why he doesn't have much involvement or investment in Golarion?
4) Who decided that he would be CR 30? That ranking puts him squarely in the same power bracket as the most powerful fight-able creatures in Pathfinder: Deskari, Nocticula, Cthulhu, Pazuzu, Baba Yaga and so on.
5) Why is his INT not particularly high compared with some of the other CR 30s out there so far? It seems a bit odd (actually, this could also go for the other Empyreal Lords as well - their INT is relatively low across the board). Only an 18 on a CR 30 seems... well, bizarre. Especially since his other ability scores also seem a bit low - Cthulhu, for example, is toting around STR 56 and only has one score below 30.
1) It's the fact that outsiders are so bound to their alignments that they actually have alignment subtypes is what I was getting at. Demons and the like do still have the free will to do whatever they want–provided it promotes chaos and evil. Non-outsiders, not having alignment subtypes, are free to do whatever they want and thus change alignments MUCH easier.
2) They don't, for the most part. Cernunnos isn't super widespread in Golarion at all. He's a pretty minor Empyreal Lord in the grand scheme of the Inner Sea region. When they DO interact, though, they act as begrudging allies who argue a lot and don't really get along but generally in the end manage to set aside their differences to fight evil before they go their separate ways thinking the other is too traditional/too haphazard.
3) Beyond the fact that we simply didn't have enough room to detail every Empyreal Lord in "Chronicles of the Righteous?" Not really. This is a better question for Wes, since he decided which demigods got the bigger roles in Golarion.
4) I believe that was either Wes or Jason.
5) Because he's not as smart as the other CR 30s. Not every creature of the same CR has the exact same stats, and in some cases, deliberately setting up big differences helps to make them feel different. And because he was designed by a different author than the other CR 30 creatures. As far as game mechanics care, there's actually not a lot that Intelligence actually does to manipulate the elements that CR cares about—it really only helps skills, and skill use doesn't factor into CR calculation. If the bad guy were a wizard or used spells that keyed their DCs off Intelligence, then yes, it would be weird for a CR 30 creature to have an 18 intelligence. But Cernunnos doesn't care about that stuff. If his Int was 10 or 8, his CR would remain unchanged. That might feel weird and counterintuitive, but that's how it is.
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Creative Director
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While we're on the topic of paladins, what were the most common paladin patrons in ancient Azlant? I assume Shelyn and Abadar, since they've been explicitly mentioned to have originated as Azlanti deities, but I'm wondering if others were involved (I understand if this topic is one that simply hasn't been developed enough yet to give a concise answer).
Also, I'm debating adding mythic rules to a campaign idea I have which is basically "The PCs are various people who through sheer luck or some divine providence, survived Earthfall." The idea is a post-apocalyptic campaign set during the Age of Darkness (I've been watching way too much Adventure Time lately), and figure that mythic would probably be a requirement for a story like this, since this is a time when folks like Aroden and Old-Mage Jatembe are beginning their legends. Good idea? Bad idea? The sort of theme I have in mind is "The world hasn't ended...it has changed."
We haven't set in stone enough about Azlant for me to say who the most common paladin patrons were... but I can say this—paladins were MUCH less common in Azlant than they were today. Shelyn probably had no paladins back then, but Abadar certainly did. There was probably another patron as well who's moved on or died or been forgotten... maybe.
Mythic would indeed be a good idea for that, especially if you set it up so that the PCs would have died except for the fact that they survived through sheer divine providence. It'd be a LOT of work though, since you'd essentially be building a campaign setting to run it.
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Creative Director
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The 'free will' thing interests me, as well... up to now, I considered aligned outsiders to principally have free will, but with a set of strong instincts pulling them towards acts fitting their alignment subtypes, making out-of-alignment actions very counter-intuitive for them. It just feels 'wrong' (with a capital W).In addition, I'd like to ask a few more questions regarding Arueshalae, if I may...
1)
Spoiler:Apparently, she cannot engage in acts of passion without automatically starting to drain life force from her partner. Is this effect inherent to Succubi, or is this a particular problem Arueshalae has to cope with?
2)
Spoiler:Draining life force from a creature is considered an 'evil act' for her, endangering her redemption. Does this hold true even if said life force is freely given? After all, a character might decide that giving her some comfort is worth the price... negative levels aren't that hard to cure.
Of course, this might be reinforcing her 'feeding' instincts, so it still could result in a throwback...
My use of the phrase "free will" wasn't all that great, honestly. As mentioned above... I was basically talking about how outsiders who are forged out of specific alignments and souls and thus have alignment subtypes are relatively hardcoded to act according to those alignments. They can deviate... but that's so rare that it can be considered to never happen. I mean... look at the Adventure Paths. We have not skimped on demons in the past 75 months, which is how long it took us to do a demon that wasn't chaotic evil... and that demon is a SIGNIFICANT part of an entire Adventure Path. It's not a throwaway encounter. And in fact, this can expand out to other outsider races as well, making the alignment change even MORE significant.
Outsiders with alignment subtypes do have the free will to make their own choices... as long as those choices promote their alignments. Whereas all other creatures have alignments that result from their actions, outsiders have actions that result from their alignments. Unless you have that once in a bazillion years exception where something extraordinary, such as the intervention of a deity, disrupts that rule.
1)
2)
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Creative Director
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Hi JJ, ever heard about the Persian Shadhavar or Shadow Unicorn?
Do you like the creature?
Would this creature make a chance of ever appearing inside a Bestiary (AP or Hard Cover Bestiary) or not?
I had not.
It's okay. Thing is, there's a lot of different monster types that essentially do the same exact thing. This creature sounds like a leucrotta—a four-legged evil monster who uses a sound to lure you in, and if we DID stat it up, it would need something more to it than just that.
It's from mythology, so of course it has a chance of showing up in a bestiary!
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Creative Director
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Is independent publishing a viable option for a fiction author?
How hard would you say it is for an aspiring writer to get his first work published?
I've heard horror stories about publishers rejecting writers time and again or subjecting them to horrid conditions of different kinds, as well as tales of independent publishing starting to turn publishing agencies obsolete with the advent of the advancements brought about by the internet and some other forms of digital media. I wouldn't want to get my hopes too high, but neither do I want my ambitions wholly crushed since I have been doing my thing for five years now.
Depending on the circumstances and your goals, independent publishing is absolutely a viable option for a fiction author, especially now with the internet, Amazon's kindle, and so many other options opening up for authors to get their stories out there. Whether or not you can catch lightning in a bottle and make it big on your own like that depends on that magic combination of luck, talent, timing, and perseverance.
It's relatively easy to get your work self-published these days... and frankly, going that route can help you catch the eye and attention of actual publishers, so it's a pretty good option when you're getting started. As for how hard it is? That depends on the author, frankly, but the HARDEST part about getting your first work published is dealing with rejection letters and not letting that stop you from writing.
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Creative Director
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Can we have stats for "The Paizo Police"?Then you've been doing it wrong. The Pazio Police will be by momentarily to give you your demerits.That's weird. I've been pronouncing it "Kar-Zog".How do you pronounce Karzoug's name? Car-ZOOG orThe first one.Car-ZOWG?
Nope. Trade secrets. And when they come for you, they don't want you knowing about their weaknesses.
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Creative Director
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How are the benchmark animal companion stats generated? My GM wants my dinosaur mount to be a mega raptor, but they don't appear to have animal companion stats.
The megaraptor would just use the standard dinosaur companion stats; it'd never get as big as a real megaraptor though.
If your GM wants your mount to be a Large raptor from 1st level, he'll need to build those stats himself... but that'll mean your mount is FAR more powerful than intended and your character will throw off game balance. Which might be fine, depending on the GM's goals and game assumptions.
The benchmark animal companion stats were generated by Jason and his team to present a range of similarly-powered starting stats that have some variety in there to cover a wide range of options. When we create new animal companion stats, we always look to the baseline stats in the Core Rulebook as guides and try to make the new stats fit in that range of power.
A companion that starts out Large and has all of a raptor's attacks and special abilities is a lot more powerful than any of the baseline Core Rulebook options.
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Creative Director
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Is it the 19th yet?
Did you have a hand in helping to design the Investigator since it's conceptually part Alchemist?
The sum total of my involvement in the Advanced Class Guide so far has been:
1) Helping to brainstorm the 10 classes and their roles.
2) Helping to create the art order for the iconics.
3) Making sure that Jason let the hunter be proficient in longbows.
4) Giving some of my thoughts about what a swashbuckler could be to the team—I've been interested in the idea of a swashbuckler class for years, but the design team wasn't all that convinced it deserved to be a base class. Fortunately, I was able to convince them otherwise.
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Creative Director
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Can a character worship different gods (while respecting the alignment rule) and use these to qualify for different classes (base or Prestige).
For example, can a LG character be simultaneously a Paladin of Iomedae, an Inquisitor of Erastil, a Cleric of Abadar and a Mystery Cultist of Ragathiel ?
Depends on your GM.
I would not allow it, though, because devotion to one deity implies that you're following that deity's rules and ethos and all that, and if you're doing that with multiple deities, you're not following any one deity's teachings well enough to deserve to gain power from that deity.
If you want to worship, say, Erastil, Abadar, Iomedae, and Ragathiel, that's fine... but you have to worship them all more or less equally. That means you could be a paladin and inquisitor and even a mystery cultist... but you could not be a cleric.
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Creative Director
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Do you happen to know if we will get our first look at the new Iconics during the upcoming playtest release?
I do. The sketches for the iconics will not be part of the playtest. The first look at the iconics will happen later, at some point, once the sketches or mabye the finals are done in a few months or more.
The playtest has no art in it as far as I know.
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The sum total of my involvement in the Advanced Class Guide so far has been:
...
3) Making sure that Jason let the hunter be proficient in longbows.
ERASTIL LOVES YOU !!!
4) Giving some of my thoughts about what a swashbuckler could be to the team—I've been interested in the idea of a swashbuckler class for years, but the design team wasn't all that convinced it deserved to be a base class. Fortunately, I was able to convince them otherwise.
And for this you will know a thousand heavens :-)))
Is it the 19th yet?
Did you have a hand in helping to design the Investigator since it's conceptually part Alchemist?
The sum total of my involvement in the Advanced Class Guide so far has been:
1) Helping to brainstorm the 10 classes and their roles.
2) Helping to create the art order for the iconics.
3) Making sure that Jason let the hunter be proficient in longbows.
4) Giving some of my thoughts about what a swashbuckler could be to the team—I've been interested in the idea of a swashbuckler class for years, but the design team wasn't all that convinced it deserved to be a base class. Fortunately, I was able to convince them otherwise.
What was the idea behind having a hunter without longbows?
How are the benchmark animal companion stats generated? My GM wants my dinosaur mount to be a mega raptor, but they don't appear to have animal companion stats.The megaraptor would just use the standard dinosaur companion stats; it'd never get as big as a real megaraptor though.
If your GM wants your mount to be a Large raptor from 1st level, he'll need to build those stats himself... but that'll mean your mount is FAR more powerful than intended and your character will throw off game balance. Which might be fine, depending on the GM's goals and game assumptions.
The benchmark animal companion stats were generated by Jason and his team to present a range of similarly-powered starting stats that have some variety in there to cover a wide range of options. When we create new animal companion stats, we always look to the baseline stats in the Core Rulebook as guides and try to make the new stats fit in that range of power.
A companion that starts out Large and has all of a raptor's attacks and special abilities is a lot more powerful than any of the baseline Core Rulebook options.
I'm 8th Level (soon to be 9th), so I don't need a Large raptor right from the get-go. My effective Druid Level is high enough that whatever mount I select would graduate in size via its 7th Level Advancement.
After looking through my bestiaries and the Core Rulebook, I suggested to my GM that we just use the allosaurus stats and reflavor the creature as a megaraptor. Same size category, same basic attacks and abilities.
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Creative Director
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What was the idea behind having a hunter without longbows?Is it the 19th yet?
Did you have a hand in helping to design the Investigator since it's conceptually part Alchemist?
The sum total of my involvement in the Advanced Class Guide so far has been:
1) Helping to brainstorm the 10 classes and their roles.
2) Helping to create the art order for the iconics.
3) Making sure that Jason let the hunter be proficient in longbows.
4) Giving some of my thoughts about what a swashbuckler could be to the team—I've been interested in the idea of a swashbuckler class for years, but the design team wasn't all that convinced it deserved to be a base class. Fortunately, I was able to convince them otherwise.
That giving them longbows made them too close to rangers, or something like that. It was a kind of spurious reason that didn't stand up well to logic, and so it went away. Had it made it into the playtest, I'm sure that would have fixed it too... but we caught it before then so it's all good.
Where do you find the patience to answer all these questions?Trade secret!
I hear they bottle the stuff. ;-)
Can you explain to me the logic of including the Brawler Advanced Class? Personally, as someone who enjoys the Monk class, this new Brawler class feels like nothing more than a slap in the face.
I mean, the Monk class as it is already has a 'controversy button' taped to it, and now the one niche that was, mostly, all his, is being taken away. Even then, it's going to be taken away, and the guy doing it is going to take his lunch money, run off with his wife, and get more attention from his dog too.
When I first heard about this class, I started having flash backs to all those posts about 'Paizo hates Monks and goes out of their way to nerf him' that were popping up with increasing frequency last year. This class just seems like it's going to rekindle those feelings, and make fans of the Monk class even more isolated.
There are already unarmed Barbarian and Fighter archetypes that put the Monk to shame in the unarmed category, now you're releasing a whole class that is, practically, designed to replace the Monk.
It feels like a passive-aggressive hatred for Monks.
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Creative Director
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Can you explain to me the logic of including the Brawler Advanced Class? Personally, as someone who enjoys the Monk class, this new Brawler class feels like nothing more than a slap in the face.
I mean, the Monk class as it is already has a 'controversy button' taped to it, and now the one niche that was, mostly, all his, is being taken away. Even then, it's going to be taken away, and the guy doing it is going to take his lunch money, run off with his wife, and get more attention from his dog too.
When I first heard about this class, I started having flash backs to all those posts about 'Paizo hates Monks and goes out of their way to nerf him' that were popping up with increasing frequency last year. This class just seems like it's going to rekindle those feelings, and make fans of the Monk class even more isolated.
There are already unarmed Barbarian and Fighter archetypes that put the Monk to shame in the unarmed category, now you're releasing a whole class that is, practically, designed to replace the Monk.
It feels like a passive-aggressive hatred for Monks.
I'm not ready to talk about the brawler until the playtest is out and folks see what it is. At that point, and after you've had a chance to digest how it's different than the monk, I'll answer questions as best I can (even though I'm not all that involved in its design at all).
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Creative Director
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Shifting slightly but still looking at demons and their behaviour, you've mentioned in previous answers that occasionally Nocticula has responded to a summons for things like posing for art and so on. I have a couple of questions about things like this:
1) Does she (or any other demon lord) ever agree to be called by an individual on a long-term basis? For example, there's the Mythic Origins "dominion over outsiders" that allows a mythic caster to attempt to bind an outsider to service for a year and a day, so similar lengths to that.
2) Or, does this sort of thing take her away from her place of power for too long and put her other plots at risk? In which case, is she more likely to (if she agrees to the service) remain in her own realm but send assistance (minions, simulacrums, etc.) to keep the terms of the bargain, whatever said terms are?
3) What sort of offerings would demon lords require in exchange for a period of service (would "alliance" be a better term for it?) along these lines? You gave some examples of offerings in Demons Revisited, but I'd imagine that for a demon lord to agree, they would have to be significantly greater?
(Kostchtchie would want something that could give him an advantage over Baba Yaga, for example?)
Of course, I also expect that, being demon lords, they would take every chance to subvert and get around the foolish spellcaster who thinks he or she can make a deal with them or, worse, compel service from them.
1) As a general rule, no. That type of long-term basis might form from a mutual alliance, similar to how Iggwilv and Graz'zt got along in Greyhawk... but mortal spellcasters as a general rule don't have power to enslave demon lords. Powerful mythic mortals... perhaps, but that's not something we've done rules for yet. And may never do so. We'll see.
2) Anything that makes a demon lord have to abandon their realm for a long period of time would be VERY bad, since it won't take long for an abandoned realm to be seized, at which point the demon lord becomes much more vulnerable to death.
3) Significant and memorable offerings, the gathering and orchestration of which should be entire adventures.
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How would you react if the proposed Iconic for the Swashbuckler was a Dwarf?I don't have to ever worry about that. Turns out I have a fair amount of influence on the creative directing side of things at Paizo.
:3 sorry couldn't resist.
Although I am hoping that the Iconic Brawler is either a Female Halfling or Gnome.
With the mythic game does a familiar gain anything as you gain mythic levels. In the games I play with my group familiars are a part of the group often entering into battle. If a familiar is a Extension of the spell caster wouldn't they gain some mythic ability?