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Wouldn't it be cool if Paizo released a whole book of iconic, pre-made characters? I'm thinking at least two or three new builds for each class, all of which would need to be Pathfinder Society legal. For example, a caster/healer cleric, a front-line melee type, and maybe even a necromancer variant.
What got me thinking about this is the current pre-made fighter iconic option, which for some reason is based on a needlessly complicated, underpowered two-weapon build. Three times now I've been in a situation where I needed to introduce a completely new player to the game, and naturally the player wanted to start simple. "I'll just play a fighter." Except now I have to spend fifteen extra minutes explaining off-hand weapons, full attacks, and the stats for two different swords. After all of that, the player then spends the rest of the night stuck with an underwhelming character build that can't keep up in combat and has nothing to do outside of combat.
Sound good?
Also, though I'm not sure where to find it, PF Society has pre-made 'iconic' characters at levels 1 and 4 (maybe even 7?) for all the base and core classes. I'd expect work to be done on the new hybrid classes very soon as well.
However, some are less optimal than others (I'm looking at you, Harsk), and none are made with min-maxing/power-gaming in mind. Though they are great for learning a class you've never played before.
I guess the main point would be to greatly expand the number of PFS legal builds.
The number of legal builds is practically infinite; are you referring to the number of pre-mades characters?
If so, then I would agree. I'd love for someone new to character creation to have easy choices for party roles. (Ie, I'd love to play a Sorcerer... but Seoni's an evocation specialist. What if I wanted to try a controller? or enchanter? etc.)
So if you're referring to pre-generated "roles" for PFS, sorted by class and race, then I agree that it'd be nice to have... but I doubt Paizo will put in the effort of making every class option for you.
That being said, I know a quick forum search will turn up plenty of PFS-legal builds that people have posted here. You could use these for inspiration on your own makes with minor tweaks, or flat out steal these characters and claim them as your own (in which case I'd recommend a name change, at the least ;P )
While I agree that it would be a great resource for art, I just imagine that Paizo has better things to do than create a full list of all available options for every class applied in different ways.
I own a copy of the NPC Codex myself, and I scan through it occasionally to find inspiration for random builds - they have all Core classes leveled 1-20, with each one having a different style and theme; full equipment, skill, spell, and feat selection; and a small blurb on background suggestions and combat tactics.
Otherwise I'd use the internet/forums for inspiration on other builds. There are many other sites out there that offer guides/builds for different classes and styles within, and honestly it's really just a matter of compiling that into one navigable source.
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The problem isn't coming up with builds. The problem is that there aren't enough that are legal for PFS play. Also, that there are some problems with the ones we have, mainly that some of them are really weak and/or use some of the most complicated rules in the game, making them poor choices for new players.
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Yes, I was specifically talking about multiple Paizo-created and published PFS legal builds for every class. Not only would a book like that be really useful to new players (in and out of PFS play) but it would be a great art resource as well.Quite frankly, new players should stick to standard non-complicated builds. The idea of pre-gens is to give players a character that's ready to run hit the feet on the floor and go!. I don't want to spend 30 mins of a 4 hour convention slot to explain a character sheet to a newbie, especially if I have a table full of them.
You want oddball offcenter builds.... build them yourself! One build per class... it's a system that's worked very well for us so far.
Wait, are you agreeing with me or not? I can't tell. Your tone sounds like you're disagreeing with me, but you just repeated everything I've said so far.
I'd like to see a book of official, Paizo-published pre-generated characters, at least three builds for each class, that are all simple, straightforward, and PFS-legal.