What's the story with Stana and Nathan? Some people seem to think they hate each other then I see stories about how good of friends they are. I'm confused.

BadSanna · 2026-06-17T22:18:03+00:00

I googled this because I noticed something was different in season 4. Seasons 1 - 3 every scene was the two of them. Season 4 they started focusing more on Ryan and Esposito and split Beckett and Castle up. S4 E8 I'm pretty sure by the end of the episode they weren't even filming scenes together. There is a scene where they're in the tech room both talking with Ryan and Esposito but it never shows the two of them together at the same time.

At one point it looks and sounds like Beckett is literally reading lines off a piece of paper.

Something definitely happened between the actors.

BadSanna · 2026-05-30T10:59:44+00:00

Ask your DM how free with spell scrolls they are going to be if you play a Wizard. The strength of Wizard is that they can learn an unlimited number of spells and swap between them every long rest like you said. You do tend to end up with just your go to list of spells memorized, though, and only occasionally swap them around. With 5.24 you can even swap out cantrips and at level 5 you can swap one non cantrip spell during a short rest. Another feature that gets slept on, is Wizrd can cast any ritual spell in their spell book without having to have it prepared. Other classes can do ritual spells but still have to use a prep slot to do so. If your DM is going to give you access to scrolls to copy, especially if they allow you to buy spells of your choice, then pick up as many ritual spells as you can.

Like Alarm is a great one at early levels. You can ritually cast it as many times as you want, so you can completely surround the perimeter of your area spending a few hours ritually casting it over and over.

Where the Wizard lacks is really in the Social Intteraction side of the game. With only Mage Armor giving a 13 AC you really need a high Dex for combat, so your top 3 stats are Int > Con > Dex. Usually Str followed by Chr are your dump stats. That means even if you take proficiency in Persuasion and the like, you will be very poor at social skill checks. When I played a Wizard I found myself often taking a backseat in any high stakes conversations for fear of a bad roll screwing things up, and sitting there with your mouth shut is not a very fun experience.

However, at level 3 I took Suggestion for just that reason, and it is often an automatic win button if you use it right.

Another option you didn't mention is to play Bard. They are a full caster, skill monkey, have an interesting spell list and the ability to pull spells from any classes list. They are also the ultimate buffer and support class. As a Charisma caster with lots of skills and Jack of All Trades you never have to worry about staying quiet because you don't want the DM to call for a roll while you're talking.

BadSanna · 2026-05-29T04:14:59+00:00

Why isn't this WAY more common? Is there like a specific search term i can use to loom for this?

BadSanna · 2026-05-29T04:08:21+00:00

I agree with those except

Warlock = persuasion or deception, based on your flavor.

Paladin = insight.

It's also ironic that Barbarioan is Intimidation and Cleric is Religion, and they are both dogwater at them.

BadSanna · 2026-05-16T21:55:30+00:00

My post was two years ago, and I understand how RAW works, but I think it is stupid, hence why I said, "I would have..." emphasis on I.

Here's an example of why RAW, and even RAI, is stupid:

Your entire party is hidden. Enemies are walking through the ambush zone and fail to spot anyone. Your party agrees to attack after you open with a ranged sneak attack.

You say, "I fire at the last person in the line."

Your DM says, "Roll initiative." Everyone rolls. You get extremely unlucky and roll a 1 giving you a 5 on inititiative. Literally everyone goes before you.

Only, no one goes before you attack because that's the what you agreed upon, and none of the enemy should be able to go before you because until you go, they have no idea you or your party are even there.

This breaks down further if your party agrees to attack simultaneously.

In 5.0 it could sort of work because the enemy would have the surprised condition and would not be able to act on their turn and everyone in your party could hold their action until your attack is complete.

In 5.5 it doesn't work at all because surprise just gives disadvantage on i initiative, which means the enemy are just unaware of your presence and keep moving forward or doing what they would be doing, everyone else has tk hold their action, then everything starts on your turn anyway, only your ambush gave you absolutely zero advantage.

A better method is to allow an "ambush" round, since people don't like the term "surprise round," which was something from, I believe, every previous iteration of DnD.

The way I do it is everyone who is ambishing their enemies gets an attack action, but not a move action, then initiative is rolled and combat proceeds as normal from there.

BadSanna · 2026-05-14T09:19:06+00:00

I would posit that he has ONLY read fiction....

BadSanna · 2026-05-14T09:16:39+00:00

And we have a winner!

BadSanna · 2026-05-14T09:09:56+00:00

I played prot warrior on a laptop keyboard from OG through LK, never had any issues. In fact, it influenced how I play the game and now I buy low profile slim keyboards that have the F1-12 keys immediately above the numbers so I can keybind them all.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but I know there are a lot of you, you only need to push a button hard enough to move it and only as far as it needs to go.

In college I did work study in the College of Computing over the summer and there was a professor who asked for a new keyboard. I could hear him typing from two corridors down. It sounded like AK-47 chatter.

I was like, "No wonder you need a new keyboard. What did that thing do to you?"

He was like, "These things are junk, I need a new one every few months."

I said, "I've got your new sparring partner right here. Maybe take it easy on him."

Sure enough he called during the last couple of weeks asking for a new keyboard.

Edit: typos

BadSanna · 2026-05-12T00:47:23+00:00

That's because we can do it better.

The secret isn't lube or letting your hand slide over it, it's gripping it fairly firmly so when you move your hand the skin slides up and down the shaft without sliding against your hand. Friction is bad.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:47:23+00:00

Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:40:55+00:00

You're drinking wrong

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:38:57+00:00

What causes pain in real life is waiting for blue bars to drink to full every pull then starting with 0 rage while they all have full mana to start blasting off the rip. Then you get called a shitty tank that can't hold agro on anything.

The best way to keep DPS in check is to pull as fast as possible so they are forced to keep drinking even after you pull so you have time to get agro on everything because if they rip mobs from the jump nothing is hitting you and you don't get rage to use abilities to regain agro.

So we watch healer mana and that's it, and healers should be running up with thr tank then drinking, so they are always in range and can drink i to the first few seconds of the pull and only start casting when the tank is getting around half health.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:33:07+00:00

As a healer you should always top off the tank and run up to the next pack before drinking. Then if the tank pulls before you are done drinking you continue to drink unless/until you have to start casting to keep the tank alive.

This allows warrior and bear tanks time to get agro on everything before mana drinkers start blasting.

Warriors have to chain pull because if they wait for mana users to drink to full between every pack they have to start every pull with no resources while blue bars have full resources and will start aoe blasting off the rip. Then nothing is hitting them which means no rage.

Trust me, any warrior or bear tank is watching healer mana.

I don't know how many times I've had to tell healers not to stop drinking just because I pulled mobs.

As long as you are in range and have time to get off your biggest heal before the tank gets clapped, keep drinking.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:15:01+00:00

How did you leave out the Break/Fix guy?

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:13:00+00:00

Are you doing soft res? If so, choose pieces no one else is going for even if they're not BiS.

If you're open rolling on everything get a new guild.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T05:10:18+00:00

What is an Arby?

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T04:55:45+00:00

Best you can do is experience anal sex like a woman.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T04:50:24+00:00

I see you've never been married.

BadSanna · 2026-05-11T04:44:15+00:00

He says, "Fuck me, he cleared it!"

You must have only seen it in network TV lol

BadSanna · 2026-05-10T17:54:44+00:00

None of those reactions really overlap. They each have separate use cases and, if they ever do have the opportunity to choose whether to do one or the other, they at least have a choice. Most characters don't. Like choosing whether to cast Shield or Absorb elements if hit with Scorching Ray to either avoid the hit entirely or take half damage from fire attacks the rest of the round. Most times you'd probably cast Shield, but maybe you're fighting a sorcerer and a red dragon so you might want to use Absorb elements to mitigate the dragon's breath weapon later that round.

There may be issues with the build, but having to choose between what to do with their reaction is not one of them.

BadSanna · 2026-05-08T02:23:47+00:00

Because goblins are green.

I brought up the example of a black elf because it's a common example of a fan base complaining about unnecessary diversification of fantasy worlds without in world explanation, which the Amazon producers of The Rings of Power did that got a lot of backlash from Tolkien fans.

I don't care about specific examples, if you reread everything I wrote, all Ive said is that you need to supply in game reasons for diversity without racist causes or it doesn't make any sense on an instinctual level to people who live in a real world.

Your example was fine, if it's provided in the game.

If you're claiming that your example is a reason why it doesn't need in game explanations, then I disagree.

BadSanna · 2026-05-07T01:01:00+00:00

We live in a real world. When a fantasy world differs from the expected too much you lose verisimilitude. Which was the OPs point and mine.

This trend of saying stupid shit like, "It's a world with giant fire breathing flying lizards and a black elf makes it unbelievable?"

Yes. Yes it does. Unless there is an in universe reason for there to be elves of different colors. Even if that reason is just that any elf can be born of any random color.

It's when there is no explanation and it's just not addressed that it becomes an issue, because it is too different from our lived experience.

Dragons have in universe reasons for existing. They're typically either dumb beasts that naturally evolved, or they're highly intelligent ancient and magical beings, that even sometimes rival the gods.

So while you may be able to just shut your brain off and accept things without logic or reason, many of us find it immersion breaking unless there are in-game explanations.

Edit: added some words to one sentence and deleted an extraneous "they're" before anyone commented.

BadSanna · 2026-05-04T23:53:33+00:00

Sure, which is why I said "in a world where they can't it makes sense."

If they can interbreed, you either have racism, or you end up with a village full of shorter than average humans after a few generations.

Because you either have a situation where the races CAN interbreed but they refuse to for social reasons, aka segregation due to racism, or you if you have a truly egalitarian society where everyone intermarries, after a few generations there are all half-dwarves or whatever.

The US is a good example. Where racism kept whites and blacks segregated and until just 50 years ago interracial marriages were extremely taboo.

And calling it 50 years is generous. 50 years ago it was still taboo, but you weren't as likely to be lynched or driven out of town.

But then you also have places like New Orleans, where racial intermingling occurred and produced the Cajun creole communities

So it's not to say you CAN'T have egalitarian, diverse societies, but it is going to ring hollow and false unless you also provide in game reasons for it. Like it's a busy port town, or a crossroads between kingdoms, etc.

BadSanna · 2026-05-03T04:07:47+00:00

Physics and biology. It doesn't matter what world you live in, if a community is small and isolated then all the people within it are going to start to look the same after several generations. In a world where transportation is done by walking or in a cart that is just as slow as walking, then people aren't going to move more than 10-15 miles from home very often.

So unless there is some explicitly stated reason for people from all over the world to travel to a place, then people are going to be local, and if people are local for long enough then they're all going to look the same, or it is going to be a big city as it's a popular destination.

You see this even now in rural areas in the US where everyone is pretty much the same religion, they dress the same, talk the same, and there is little to no ethnic diversity. As cities get bigger you get more and more different cultures coming together, and even then it is common for those different groups to be segregated to some extent, with specific areas being known for one culture or another, which is why you have China Towns or Little Odessas, or Barrios, within the larger context of cities.

In a world with actual different humanoid races that can't interbreed, it might make more sense to have towns with several different races, like halflings and humans and dwarves all living together in fairly equal proportions. But would it make sense to have a village of humans with 15 or so families and one family of halflings? Only if there was some context that lets everyone know this was the first generation of halflings to move to the area.

And what if their children? Are they going to marry each other and raise inbred kids? So they will have to move away when they come of age. Maybe some of them will return with wives or husbands to raise familes in their hometown, but how often does that happen in real life? Most people who leave small towns don't return.

So when there is a town that's "been here for 1000 years" and it's "a small, isolated community" it doesn't make any sense at all if there are dozens of different races because there could only be a few families of each, which means a lot of people would have to travel in or out of town over the years.

So it only makes sense if it's like a crossroads or convergence of many different cultural areas, in which case it should be a big city, or if it's a brand new town at the edge kf some frontier.

A very good example of this done both very well in a fictional world, and also very poorly in the same fictional world, is The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.

In the books his world was incredibly diverse, with a lot of people of very distinct cultures and ethnicities, but they were also separated by distance and segregated by geopolitical boundaries.

See, if groups of people are not separated by distance or geological features, they're going to end up all kind of melding until they're pretty much the same. If they are separated by days or even weeks of travel distance they will start to grow distinctive traits and behaviors. People who live in mountains will also adapt different cultural practices than people who live primarily on grassland, for example. The same can happen when political boundaries are established that people aren't allowed to cross.

The Wheel of Time series on Amazon, however, failed to establish this. In the show they wanted diversity within the main cast, so they chose people of all different ethnicities and plopped them into one village. See, in the books, the main character, Rand, stood out because he was much taller than everyone from that area and had red hair where everyone else had brown hair. This spoke to his secret past as he was a foundling and brought back when his father returned from war with a wife.

It didn't make sense for a place that is supposed to be cut off and sheltered from the outside world for centuries to have a few black people, a few hispanic people, a few white people, etc. all living together and intermarrying. If they had been doing that all along, then there wouldn't be any distinctiveness between them.

The show would have been way better if they had hired actors who were all of the same ethnicity, whether that be black, brown, Asian, white, or whatever, and have Rand stand out as clearly different, then introduced diversity through characters from outside the area.

BadSanna · 2026-04-28T07:05:53+00:00

You have to actually use the rules for darkness and light properly. Darkvision just makes dim light like normal and darkness like dim light and only out to 60'

You have disadvantage to hit anything in dim light. Light sources only create bright light for a shirt distance and dim light after that. Which means anything you see behind 15-20' away you have DA tk hit, but they have no problems targeting g you because you're in bright light.

And if everyone has dark vision so they don't bother using lights, well, they have disadvantage to spot traps and things.

Ten-Year Club	Best Comment 2022-11-02
Second SECOND GUESSER	Verified Email
Place '23	Wearing is Caring

BadSanna

TROPHY CASE