drail

joined 8 months ago
[–] drail@fedia.io 4 points 2 days ago

North of the Border

His name is Adam and he likes to make tiny nerdy things. He makes dioramas of nerdy stuff, sometimes normal, some times with too many teeth, fingers, and/or toes.

[–] drail@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wish the Nuggets would do the Mountain or city skyline, kinda boring court as is.

[–] drail@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago

Lol, no, but I'd be damned if I put my actual name out on the internet. Dr. Drail is my profesional anonymous title.

[–] drail@fedia.io 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

As a newly minted doctor, I prefer Dr. Drail because of the work I put in. I have seen three common name/title presentations though:

Dr. Drail

Dr. Drail, Ph.D.

Mr. Drail, Ph.D.

The last one obviously preserves a gendered title if desired. I tend to include my pronouns where applicable, as it makes clear my gender identity while allowing me to use the least cumbersome combo (Dr. Drail) without confusion. I haven't ever met someone who double stacks their honorifics (ie Dr. Mr. Drail), but if you want to make clear your gender, there aren't any rules against it, and it is common in some non-english speaking cultures.

Ultimately, it is your title, your honorific, so you get to decide how to present it. I prefer to just go by my name 90% of the time, but while applying for jobs or introducing myself in a profesional capacity, Dr. Drail (he/him/his) is a really easy way to get all the info across succinctly.

[–] drail@fedia.io 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I gave my PhD dissertation defense on Friday, so I am looking forward to not having anything specific to look forward to.

I haven't played a video game for any length of time since Elden Ring first came out, so I might play Shadow of the Erdtree. Or maybe BG3. Or maybe I will just do some dnd planning. I want to get some home repairs done, so some of that. Maybe just go chill with some friends. All the little things that I haven't had the time/energy/bandwidth to do for so long.

I want to enjoy not being consantly anxious about my research and not just be distracting myself from said anxiety, but to truly relax, just for a week or two before I move and have to start job hunting.

[–] drail@fedia.io 6 points 3 months ago

When I was a kid, it was playing card rubberbanded to my chainstay so I could pretend I was riding a motorcycle from the noise

Nowadays, I prefer to just let out wolf whistle. Pierces even the best noise cancelling headphones and busiest traffic noise.

[–] drail@fedia.io 9 points 5 months ago

I work on a 0nuBB search doing detector R&D, this is spot on, but has 2 extra components. The three elements needed for explaining the asymmetry are:

  1. CP Violation
  2. Lepton or Baryon Number violation
  3. Interactions out of thermal equilibrium

These are the Sakharov conditions for Baryogenesis/Leptogenesis. #1 has been observed via the weak interaction but not in large enough quantities and is not observed via strong interactions, #2 is what proton decay and 0nuBB searches look for, and #3 can be, at least partially, explained by the expansion of the universe as a non-equilibrium interaction.

To get from leptogenesis to baryogenesis requires theretical physics I only barely understand using particles call sphaelerons that convert leptons to baryons.

[–] drail@fedia.io 5 points 7 months ago

Fighter as a class is only as cliché as the story behind it from an RP perspective imo. An assassin who has only relied on his mental acuity (precision and brain blades) and stealth to reach their goals deciding that they need to more formally learn how to be an effective combatant doesn't read as cliché to me, it seems very pragmatic. Or having escaped near death time and time again in combat, an assassin learning by trial and error how to improve their odds of surviving direct combat. Or literally extracting the knowledge via their soulknife abilities from every fighter they slay, adding experiences into their repertoire. Loads of potential there for a fun Rogue/Fighter build.

I have three questions that I ask every time I theorycraft an MC build (and some example prompts):

1. Why do you want to MC? Is it to make a more powerful character/to diversify your skills/to fill a niche in the party/for narrative completeness/etc?

**2. Why is your character developing these new skills? ** Does your character have a latent predisposition to this change? Did they get challenged in a way that necessitated change? Did a party member/mentor influence them to try out a new skillset?

3. Do you want the change to alter your concept for the character (both in combat and RP), and how does that fit with the character you play?

Answering these questions helps me a lot in deciding how to explain the MC decision, flesh out the character concept, and work it in to the game as written. If you just want to mix it up or beef up your character, that is fine too, but I think it is more satisfying when you can bridge the RP and the mechanics.

[–] drail@fedia.io 1 points 7 months ago

Ah, damn, you are totally right!

[–] drail@fedia.io 14 points 7 months ago (4 children)

My two cents is that multiclassing should be driven first and foremost by what seems cool or fun, then looking at story consideration, and finally looking at optimization. Rogue is one of the best classes for MC, it has endless synergy with basically every other class, so I don't think there is a wrong answer in terms of viability. Rogue/bard is super fun, allowing for a super versatile character in terms of being the face and skillmonkey, rogue/fighter is a potent martial combination, and warlock rogue has neat RP potential and some nice interplay between invocations and roguish abilities (darkness, mask of many faces, etc.)

How has you character been played so far? A dashing trickster would lend itself to bard (swords, whisper, or lore), a deadly and efficient assasssin would lend itself to fighter (BM or echo knight if allowed), or a curious seeker of secrets would lend itself to warlock (hex blade is the best choice for a mixed martial imo).