Amber Scott's page

And when you query, don't forget to mention how much you enjoy washing people's trucks. :-D

Since we were discussing my "Tokens of Faith" article in the other thread, I'll reproduce the initial query I sent to Dragon here.

"-an article on alternative holy symbols other than the standard wood/silver picture of your god's symbol. A few alternatives for a half-dozen Domains and maybe a tiny mechanical effect tied to each domain for using one of the special symbols."

That was it. My reply was basically, "That's cool, do it and make sure to include a mix of Domains." After the original ToF had been accepted, Mike McArtor requested I do the rest of the Domains. So that was fun. :-)

In general I pitch 4-10 ideas per query. Here is a mock-up of what a typical Class Acts query email I send to Mike would look like.

---
"Dear Mike,

I have a few ideas on Class Acts that I'd like to run by you. Please tell me if you find any of them interesting.

-an alternate monk class based on Jackie Chan movies. I call the class "Cinemonk." They advance as regular monks but gain a few special abilities (like "Improvise Weapon") and can convert lethal damage to subdual once a day.

-an article detailing new familiars for wizards and/or sorcerers, including the wildebeest, the chinchilla, and the Canada goose (the goose is especially fun, it grants a +2 bonus to Perform (honking imitations) rolls.)

-an article called "Prancing Queen" that showcases new uses of the Perform skill for bards. Categories include "foxtrot," "rumba," and "Electric Slide."

-an alternate class based on the character of Captain Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean." It could work as either a bard, rogue, or fighter Class Act, depending on what you need most. Right now I see it as a rogue with a lot of Charisma skills that manifest as unnatural charm despite the rogue's physical appearance. If you don't want this as a class act, may I resubmit the idea for "Divine Inspiration"?

-new equipment for the Fighter including armor polish, custom stirrups (+1 to Ride checks!) and rust-resistant swords.

Please let me know if you'd like to see any of these. Thanks very much for your time and attention!

Yours,

Amber Scott"
---

If at all possible I include a working title for the article, but titles are the bane of my existence so they generally come later. But that's the gist of what my query emails look like. :-) Only, you know, with good ideas.

-Amber

Wow, what a thorough review! I love reading people's thoughts like this. :-) And I'm really glad to hear someone else loves Class Acts. Did you like any of the Class Acts in particular, Sean? I did the Rogue and Cleric this month. :-)

-Amber Scott

(Yes, totally fishing for praise, but also honest feedback. "It's the only way I'll learn!" -Chief Wiggum.)

All debate about the cover aside, what did people think of #329's content?

-Amber Scott

Just for the record (since I know it will come up eventually), I am an adult, happily married woman and I think the cover is fantastic. If I were as powerful as a medusa (and I looked that good) I'd wear whatever the hell I wanted in my own lair too.

-Amber S.

I get the feeling that he's pretty young if his parents are getting a look at his mail. If his mom freaked out at the "Serve the Demons" line and won't trust him to explain the game or what the article means, and she thinks medusa thighs are pornographic, I would think that saying, "But demons have been around since 1974!" wouldn't do much good.

Edit: And if I see a change in general artwork (I don't know what Flinger means by "this many scantily clad women"...as far as I can tell this is the first since the Dragon relaunch 6 issues ago) I will be very disappointed.

Not to blow my own horn (too loudly), but I wrote an article about 4 unique intelligent items for Giant in the Playground that you might find interesting. Read it here.

-Amber S.

Huh, my mom was crazy about the cover. I guess everyone is different.

-Amber S.

My husband routinely kills of my characters - that first char death sort of set the precedent for our roleplaying relationship. ;-) He's a "let the dice fall where they may" DM and I'm a "charge in and let the gods sort it out" type player. Once he killed me on Valentine's Day! And yet, we're still together after almost ten years. It must be love.

-Amber

My future husband was the first man to kill me, I believe it was in our first year of university. My female fighter got killed by some goblins. I'd been playing for years before that but had never had a character die on me.

-Amber

Thanks, Troy! :-D

-Amber

I don't think it matters. Whatever floats your boat (or rows your drow or whatever.)

Haven't read it yet. But I will say that the cover is so awesome, I'd have to resort to words not allowable on a public forum to completely extol its awesomeness. My socks are totally rocked off.

I would love a copy as well. I promise to be patient, since you're obviously going to have a waiting list. :-)

medesha@yahoo.com

I play online using AOL instant messenger. My friends and I log on at the same time and start a chat room, and I DM for 4 hours or so. AIM chat rooms have a built in dicebot which makes it easy, and I put up battlemaps online for combats. Since I move every 6 months or so it's an awesome way for me to keep in touch with my friends.

Thanks very much! B-)

There was an adventure in Dungeon that involved the Crusades. I think you were searching for a piece of the True Cross? Does anyone remember the issue number/adventure name? Thanks!

-Amber

Last time I was at the Paizo office I got a whiskey bottle thrown at my head. Hmph.

;-)

Wil Save ain't floating my boat.

it is a waste of space.

Medesha,

move me from the "don't care category" to the "get rid of this POS" group.

Man, I'm going have to update this puppy too? That's what I get for being helpful. ;-) I'll do it for you, diaglo, cuz I like you, but I don't indend on keeping my little stat-post up to date. I'm sure the Paizo guys are handling that at the office. :-)

Edit: Actually, I found I can't edit posts after they get old. Huh. Everyone who reads my above post, change one don't care to a hate it!

I've been playing Settlers online for months and months...actually, until I went to GenCon last year, I'd only ever played Settlers online. I find it to be really fun and interesting, though sometimes you do play with jerks. The server I use has bots though, so it's ok.

Robert Head, I'd like to send you an email if I might. Would you mind emailing me at medesha@yahoo.com if that's cool? Sorry to spam up the thread but I figured you'd be likely to read it. Thanks!

And for all the people who disliked 'Wil Save' but didn't kick up a fuss about the numbers (ASEO, I'm looking at you. ;-) ), my hat is off to you. It's harder than one might think to resist the urge to be petty and go for grace instead, especially on an anonymous medium like the internet. I admire your class.

D&D Online Games is pretty awesome.

http://www.dndonlinegames.com/

It's a quiet morning here in Seattle and, well, I don't really have what one could term a "life" anyway, so I collected the proof. Yes, I went through all 200+ posts on the first thread and tallied For/Against/Don't Care. It was hard, and I expect an error of about 5 votes in any given category, either high or low (because so many people posted more than once, or changed their minds halfway through.) People who said stuff like, "Well, at least it isn't Downer," got put in Don't Care.

FOR 'Wil Save': 49
AGAINST 'Wil Save': 19
DON'T CARE: 11

So if the message boards are even slightly representative of the feedback Paizo gets overall, Robert Head is right. More people like Wil Save than don't. PS I did not include the votes of the staff in this tally, leaving it solely up to the readership.

Edit: Added The Evil DM's 'vote'.

I hope you include the will-o'-wisp comments you left out earlier in your repost, since I'd love to hear them. For now I'll just say thanks! And it sucks about the boards eating your post. I hate that. It never happens on a two-sentence post either, always a monster five page one.

-Amber Scott

Mystery Man- Just because an article gets alot of posts pertaining to it on these boards does not mean its worth the paper its printed on. Going through the thread you'll see that for every person supportiong Wil there was another well articulated argument about how it was turning a completely different set of readers off...

If Dungeon discontinued a fun column like "Wil Save" because they were afraid some people don't like it, it would turn me off. So I guess there's two sides to everything.

I ran Maure Castle for my husband, brother and best friend over Christmas. It was a smash hit, and I even got to kill my brother! What more could an older sister want? :-p This module rocks.

Amber, sorry if my first answer sounded abrupt...Hope this better explains things.

Oh, I'm familiar with the show. I just found it really amusing that Bullwinkle never could pull a rabbit out of his hat using that item. So Rocky was being literal when he said the trick never works!

Still, I appreciate you taking the time to explain. It's the mark of a classy poster. :-)

but one never knows what Wes will come up with next...

I do! I do! Oh, wait, no I don't.

I saved mine from the Dragons they came in and taped them all together. That huge map has travelled from Seattle to Edmonton (Alberta) to Curacao (south caribbean) back to Edmonton to Austin to Dayton (Ohio) and back to Seattle where I am now. It's the first thing I put on my wall when I move into a new place - it makes it feel like home. Thusly I feel an irrational attraction to that huge, dog-eared, torn and taped map on my wall. Plus it's handy to have around since I DM so much Forgotten Realms.

I played a druid once who was a hippie chick that liked plants better than animals. She thought animals were dirty and smelly and plants were cool. She wore lots of beads and would say things like, "Plants are people too!" and "Give peas a chance!"

So it is, actually, impossible to pull a rabbit out of his hat? :-p

I suggest waiting another two weeks. Paizo is super busy right now as everyone tries to finish everything before the holidays. It's really crunch time over there and responses are somewhat slow. :-)

Most of the holy symbols read like a fashion mag rather than actual sets of symbolic items. You do can do good work, Medesha, but this one I'd rather pass.

Sorry it didn't appeal to you - it's still one of my favorites. :-) The 'fashion mag' element was surprisingly difficult and, I hope, will jump-start ideas for players who have always used wooden amulets on a string.

Thank you very much, guys. :-) I appreciate the feedback, it keeps me honest. Or something. And I really did like that one.

Troy: I also wrote Sacred Spells in issue #299 and Ecology of the Duergar in #325. I have an article coming out next month (that one is going to be totally awesome) and theoretically in two more issues soon after.

I did the cleric Class Act this month! Any comments on it, anyone?

-Amber

I am not a Paizo staffer but I would go ahead and submit your idea, BOZ. It sounds pretty cool! You may want to think of a way to make it more interesting to players and adaptable to all kinds of games before you submit, though. The Dragon guys love that kind of stuff.

What I mean is, an article on the bugbear pantheon probably won't be useful to your average gamer. Not a lot of people play bugbears and non-bugbear PCs probably won't worship bugbear deities. So you could take a different slant on it. Perhaps give a brief description of each deity and then list some 'special powers' (i.e. feats) they have bestowed on their followers that have since been picked up by other races? Or you could follow each description with new cleric spells that deity grants that have been stolen by other deities.

You could even do an "Ecology of the Bugbear" that talks about how the worship of the six gods influences bugbear development and society.

Good luck with your proposal!

-Amber Scott

I was browsing my local FLGS and I came upon this boss Silver Age Sentinels mini that I bought several of to use as warforged:

LINK

Thought others might find this useful. :-)

Actually, I haven't done any work for Mongoose. My professional credits, as they were, include Dragon and Giant in the Playground games. I recently had an article on the World of Farland webpage as well. But, y'know, if any Mongoose people out there are reading this and want to give me a job, I have no objections. ^.^

Glad you liked the article, Seeker!

Thank you, Mark. Adri, I couldn't find the AA article. What page was it on?

Anyway, I finally got to look at the article, and it was great. I don't say that to brag; what I mean is I wrote the article before the new Dragon format, and the editors had to patchwork it a bit. They did a fantastic job of keeping most of my material while making it fit the new format. Some stuff got cut, unfortunately, but they left the creation myth in its entirety which was my favourite bit. Yay for the editors!

I'm really enjoying Wil's column, keep it up. :-)

-Amber Scott

The Duergar creation myth was awesome.

Thanks! I did think it was rather cool. I'll endeavor to make future ecologies more awesome and less so-so. :-)

-Amber

What do you think? I heard the Ecology of the Duergar was pretty stellar. 0:-)

-Amber

Cool, congratulations and good luck! :-)

Now that would be a cool Hallowe'en article! Who's gonna pitch it? :-D

It took me about twenty minutes, but I didn't "create" it - I just advanced the mimic using the rules in the back of the MM. :-p

"Campaign Components" still exist, and have been increased to five parts.

There will be one large feature article for DMs every month, plus the three adventures, plus the five Campaign Components, plus critical hits, the "how-to" articles plus map of mystery. That's hardly "nothing for DMs".

I would probably put it at gargantuan, actually (I know mimics aren't supposed to get gargantuan, but I'll pretend they can for the sake of coolness ;-)). A gargantuan mimic would look like this:

House Mimic
Gargantuan Aberration (Shapechanger)
Hit Dice: 25d8+175 (287 hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 10 ft. (2 squares)
Armor Class: 19 (-3 size, +12 natural), touch 7, flat-footed 19
Base Attack/Grapple: +18/+42
Attack: Slam +28 (2d8+12)
Full Attack: 2 slams +28 (2d8+12)
Special Attacks: Adhesive, crush
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., immunity to acid, mimic shape
Saves: Fort +17, Ref +10, Will +15
Abilities: Str 34, Dex 10, Con 25, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 10
Skills: Climb +17, Disguise +33, Listen +16, Spot +16
Feats: Ability Focus (adhesive) x4, Alertness, Great Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (slam)
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 10 (?)
Treasure: 1/10th coins, 50% goods, 50% items
Alignment: Usually neutral

Adhesive: Saving throw DCs become 24
Crush: Damage becomes 2d8+12