Not much really.
1. A biography for each iconic, including a physical description and a picture.
2. A "signature" saying.
3. A first level build for each iconic (including the ones Paizo is at present reluctant to make).
4. An explanation of why the choices made for the above build were made.
5. Higher level builds (at least 5th and 10th).
6. A Pathbuilder build for each iconic (up to 20th level if possible).
7. An explanation of the choices in the above Pathbuilder build that weren't covered in item 4.
Not gonna happen, I'm sure, but it'd be nice.
Any particular reason you want this for the iconic characters specifically?
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My guess would be "to play them more accurately", which I can get behind, kind of.
Also having more complete builds might help newer players or players who haven't tried the class yet understand how the class works with a practical example.
Any particular reason you want this for the iconic characters specifically?
Partly because, to me, that's what the iconics are for: to provide an example of how to build a character of each class. I could argue, too, for an iconic for each subclass, which would widen the field dramatically (and probably be more work than Paizo wants to do).
And yeah, there's an element of "to play them more accurately" in there too.
There are builds for them, most are pretty awful (Especially Harsk, his 1st level feat is crossbow ace with a heavy crossbow and he is a flurry ranger, by 5th level he still doesn't have twin takedown despite also being a dual wielder in melee)
Well, yeah. Note that nobody every said why Harsk's build looks as it does, which is one of the "wants" on my list. :-)
I'd be completely down for suggests 1 through 3, that seems like a fun little project and I would enjoy learning more about the iconics.
4 and 5 seems a bit odd, especially for the explanation of it, since icnonics can sometimes change what they're doing based on the AP. Like, do we need to give Lini some archetypes for her preforming given her act on the cover of Extinction Curse?
6 and 7 just seem completely unreasonable to me, the devs should not be expected to release content for a 3rd party APP that they don't officially acknowledge. Paizo is very friendly to what other would describe as piracy to their benefit, but asking them utilize pathbuilder to make a character and include annotations justifying their build choices just seems really power tripping.
Pathbuilder is a tool that's designed to highlight your character's choices at every level. I suggested it because it's a useful tool. As for "power tripping", you have no basis for that insult.
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[J]ustifying their build choices just seems really power tripping.
If the Iconic characters are meant to help new players understand how to build a PF2 character these annotations would be extremely helpful. It's a bit of work but not an unreasonable request.
[J]ustifying their build choices just seems really power tripping.If the Iconic characters are meant to help new players understand how to build a PF2 character these annotations would be extremely helpful. It's a bit of work but not an unreasonable request.
I think if they were meant as mechanical guides, I would agree. But that doesn't feel like what the Iconics are supposed to be. I always felt they were more roleplay examples than they were mechanical examples. Like a player may go "What kind of person is a thaumaturge" and look to Mios to understand "person exposed to spooky events that researched their way to fighting it."
I don't know if they're supposed to have mechanics attached to them as like a Pf 1e thing that I'm not aware of, but I was under the impression they're not meant to serve as a mechanical guideline, and the actual classes themselves posses example characters with their own artwork in the side margins for you to use mechanics wise.
I think if they were meant as mechanical guides, I would agree. But that doesn't feel like what the Iconics are supposed to be. I always felt they were more roleplay examples than they were mechanical examples. Like a player may go "What kind of person is a thaumaturge" and look to Mios to understand "person exposed to spooky events that researched their way to fighting it."
I don't know if they're supposed to have mechanics attached to them as like a Pf 1e thing that I'm not aware of, but I was under the impression they're not meant to serve as a mechanical guideline, and the actual classes themselves posses example characters with their own artwork in the side margins for you to use mechanics wise.
PF2 should use them as a mechanical guideline, at least to show what the designers expect a baseline character of each class to look like. They could then show what they would look like with a free archetype to show GMs what that might add to a character.
Prebuilt characters are one of the best ways to show new players how a game works and the iconics should have featured heavily in each class's section of the rules.
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I think given the information, perhaps a mixed media approach would work better. Dndbeyond will sometimes upload YouTube videos where Jeremy Crawford talks about design philosophy or developer intent for upcoming releases. Perhaps paizo would benefit from doing this, since they have a channel mostly used to release AP trailers and such, they could use this and make videos covering the iconic and perhaps going through a level 1 through 20 character leveling. It may prove not just more cost efficient, but more up to date with how a modern audience might want to consume such content.
I think given the information, perhaps a mixed media approach would work better. Dndbeyond will sometimes upload YouTube videos where Jeremy Crawford talks about design philosophy or developer intent for upcoming releases. Perhaps paizo would benefit from doing this, since they have a channel mostly used to release AP trailers and such, they could use this and make videos covering the iconic and perhaps going through a level 1 through 20 character leveling. It may prove not just more cost efficient, but more up to date with how a modern audience might want to consume such content.Ugh, now I have to let my oldfogie show. I hate videos. 30 or more minutes of time to get the equivalent information of 1-5 minutes of reading. Plus potential commercials. No thanks, charge me 10 cents per page for a downloadable, I'll be much happier. But on this subject, I expect I am in the minority.
I would say that is fairly generous. Sometimes there are 40 minute videos that tell you about 30 seconds worth of content, or are a complete waste of time. The amount of how-to videos, across multiple disciplines that are 4-5 minutes long, that could be 25 seconds to a minute is appalling. I’m not here to listen to someone say “what you’re going to want to go ahead and do is”….and the amount of actions that aren’t sped through speaks to the poor editing skills and general perils of user-generated “content”.
Then again, some people are visual learners. Or prefer audio. But basically, I agree with Easl.