drail

I use Tidal for listening to music on my phone most of the time, whether wired or wireless. That, plus USB Audio Player Pro for wired listening, gives a pretty good sound quality over my DAC. At home and in my work office I have dedicated DACs and tube amps for driving my cans (Schitt Modi + Littleblack Mk.2 in my office, Schitt Mobius + Feliks Echo 2 at home).

I use the dedicated DAC on mobile for a few reasons:

1. My phone doesn’t have a headphone jack and I have been dissapointed by most USBC-to-3.5mm dongles’ build quality, so using a higher quality DAC gets around that.

2. I also generally prefer a balanced 4.4mm jack over an unbalanced 3.5mm, both for a more solid physical connection and to reduce crosstalk, and my DAC has both 3.5/4.4mm ports.

3. For wireless. I use IEMs that have a wired connection and the bluetooth adapters/replacement cables are pretty low quality in my experience (low battery capacity, poor sound quality, poor build quality, finnicky connectors, etc.) and a combo bluetooth/wired dac is avoids most of these issues. It also means I can keep the DAC and my phone in different places on my person (great for having my phone on a stand while biking and keeping the DAC in my pocket, or leaving my phone charging while I listen to music in my lab).

No, the Ifi GoBlu. Great sound quality, great aesthetic, convenient size, garbage battery quality. I have had to send it in 3 times for swelling. Each time, I have buckled down more on making sure I was more careful with charging; using a smart charging or low power USBC AC adapter, then using only low voltage adapters, finally demanding they send me an AC adapter designed for it since they didn’t include one.

Such a significant thing to cheap out on with a $200 piece of tech, especially when LiPo batteries are already so cheap. They also refused to send spare batteries as well this last time, which I am more than capable of replacing myself, to save ~3 weeks of time. I have decided that if it happens again, I will just find a comparable size/voltage battery and solder it in myself to spare myself the hassle.

My pocket DAC/Amplifier Combo, works over Bluetooth and wired, built in mic. Allows me to both have great audio quality for music over wired and use my favorite IEMs wirelessly when sound quality isn’t my first concern (biking, working in my lab, chores, etc). I used to just use my wired DAC for listening to my phone, but having the flexibility of choice makes life so nice.

I just wish they had used a better battery, I have had to send it in multiple times for battery swelling.

My mom had an inspirational sign in one of her bathrooms that said, “Embrace this moment, for this moment is your life.” perfectly matched to her decor. She knew exactly what she was doing.

I have certain memories that are crystal clear, mostly traumatic, from ~2.5-4yo:

• When I fell off the couch and hurt my dog by landing on her, resulting in her snapping at me and getting bit on the face (required significant reconstructive surgery and rehoming the dog to a family without kids just to be safe, which destroyed me and my dad who loved her dearly)

• Getting chased and bit by geese at the farm-style day care my parents sent me to before preschool

• When I got a Streptococcus infection in my forearm growthplate and had to spend a lot of time in the hospital and had a port in my chest for direct medicine administration to my hear

• When I put an unpopped corn kernel in my ear and had to go to the ER to get it removed (the one day where both my parents’ insurance had lapsed. My dad was starting a new job the next day, naturally, though I didn’t understand that at the time obviously)

• Being scared of my great grandma when she was dying in the hospital with all the tubes and her sallow, paper skin

• The first (and only time) I got spanked, by my dad, which ended with me peeing myself and my mom shouting at him until early in the morning (he wasn’t abusive or anything, just a young dad who thought it was appropriate based on his upbringing that never did it again, apologized profusely to me and my mom, and still feels terrible about it)

I remember other, more positive, things from those ages, but not with the clarity or specificty that I recall these events. I remember watching the pokemon anime with my dad on the couch when he slept in after working the night shift, him making characters for me and teaching me how to play computer games via Everquest, my mom taking me to work with her when I was sad about not seeing her a lot, being with my aunt and cousins who lived just down the road, chasing garter snakes in the yard, etc.

I think it is like the red-light/green-light effect when driving: you are more likely to notice all the red lights you hit when driving because they negatively impact your normal routine, but forget the green lights that facilitate the routine. The positive memories become the general feeling you get of the time, the green lights. The bad memories stand out because they were disruptive and different, harsh red lights in your younger years.

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.

Ah, damn, you are totally right!

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).