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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kalendraf" data-source="post: 1731813" data-attributes="member: 3433">I've been playing since the 1e days.  Art has always been part of the D&D books, but back in the old days it was fairly random.  Certainly there were some good pieces of art including the "famous" one of Emrikol.  However, the general artwork in many places left much to be desired, and it generally lacked a common style or theme.I applaud WotC's emphasis on forming a coherent feel and style for their artwork in 3e/3.5.  In order to facilitate this, the use of standard common elements allows artists to more easily work toward that goal.  The creation of Iconic characters is simply one of those common elements.  But rather than just stopping at the artwork aspect, iconic characters could be used for other things as well.  However, beyond figurines, and a few other cameos, they haven't been used very much.WotC has not done a very good job of designing or utilizing their iconic characters, which is probably one of the reasons why people have grown tired of them.  IMHO, they made these characters far too bland, dooming them to mere averageness with the 25-point buy creation rules.  Though that may help in making them easily accessible for playtesting and easier to model in the illustrations, these characters seem to lack the right qualities to qualify as true heroes.  In the artwork, they always strike me as being 1st or 2nd level characters, with no real advancement.  That may have been ok for the debut of 3e, but now years later, they seem stuck in time.  Everyone else's characters and campaigns have grown up and leveled past them multiple times.  Looking back, the iconics seem sub-par at best.But is it time for their end?  Hardly.  What they need is an overhaul with at least a few more levels under their belts, and maybe some stat boosts as well.  As someone else mentioned, tie-ins like the "Scourge of Worlds" choose-your-own-adventure DVD was a great use of the Iconics.  I'd like to see more things like that.  An online comic strip w/ the iconics might be interesting as well.</blockquote>

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