How to defend against shard plate, shard blades, wind runners, ect.

[Kurkistan]

Thanks I can't through stones tablets don't work so well either, I can't find any evidence in the book towards this but we will probobly find out in the next book, as of the testing. But that would also mean that that the faster something is going the more energy the storm light can exeret. Granted fantacy and sifi don't always follow physics so well.

I don't have my copy or an ebook, but I thought it was mentioned in the Galinar assassination sequence.

[Observer]

It seems to me that shard plate becomes efectively useless when the higher levels of technology.

That's like saying coinshots become useless once guns are invented. Not only could Shardplate most likely still take a hit, but enhanced reflexes and strength are nothing to sneeze at. More jump power, surviveability and immunity to soulcasting and windrunning are also welcome perks. No, I don't think shardplate becomes useless. If anything it gets a few more uses at the cost of others.

[Tarontos]

That's like saying coinshots become useless once guns are invented. Not only could Shardplate most likely still take a hit, but enhanced reflexes and strength are nothing to sneeze at. More jump power, surviveability and immunity to soulcasting and windrunning are also welcome perks. No, I don't think shardplate becomes useless. If anything it gets a few more uses at the cost of others.

Not what I meant the defensive qualities are what I was talking aboult

[Observer]

Not what I meant the defensive qualities are what I was talking aboult

Nowadays we have bulletproof armor, and I doubt it's tougher than shardplate. At the very least it'll take one hit, and even then there's no reason not to wear it considering it enhances you rather than weighs you down.

Have crossbows firing sharpened gems infused with stormlight. From what I can tell they'd be immune to windrunning, and enough of those can be quite lethal to even Szeth's speed. Adding plate poses a problem until you get bigger gems.

[Voidus]

Have crossbows firing sharpened gems infused with stormlight.

They'd just get sucked dry from Szeth when he entered the room probably, it's also a bit cost prohibitive to outfit many people like this, you wouldn't want to waste them on a more ordinary intruder and switching ammo would take too long.

I was just doing a re-read and there's a fabrial designed to suck stormlight out of gems, I wonder if it would work on a Surgebinder.

[Kurkistan]

I was just doing a re-read and there's a fabrial designed to suck stormlight out of gems, I wonder if it would work on a Surgebinder. :unsure:/>/>

I doubt it, since I think we're pretty much agreed that people hold stormlight more tightly--or at least differently--than gems do; otherwise you'd have dueling Surgebinders stealing stormlight from each other's body.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Voidus]

Yeah, actually thinking about it it would probably be protected in the same way that metals inside someones body are.

[Observer]

I doubt it, since I think we're pretty much agreed that people hold stormlight more tightly--or at least differently than--gems do; otherwise you'd have dueling Surgebinders stealing stormlight from each other's body.

Actually, gems hold Stormlight a lot better than humans do. Humans can hold the stormlight that would light a gem for at leats a few days and they'll lose it in minutes. But like Voidus said, the investment of the body should protect it.

I guess if you knew beforehand that a windrunner/shardbearer was coming to visit you could always rig the roof to collapse. Nothing kills the speedy devils like several tons of falling stone. If you were really ambitious you could get a steel roof and rig it to raise and drop at the push of a button and therefore be forever safe from those nasty assassins.

[Tarontos]

Nowadays we have bulletproof armor, and I doubt it's tougher than shardplate. At the very least it'll take one hit, and even then there's no reason not to wear it considering it enhances you rather than weighs you down.

Have crossbows firing sharpened gems infused with stormlight. From what I can tell they'd be immune to windrunning, and enough of those can be quite lethal to even Szeth's speed. Adding plate poses a problem until you get bigger gems.

The thing about shardplate is that it can only take so many hits before shattering. It also has a very limited supply and is expensive to maintain. It has a tendancy to shatter the gems used to regrow it.

[SirShemmington VI]

Possibly relevant, how does surge binding affect liquids? Possibly using boiling oil traps, or anything to slwo a surge binder down.

[Aminar]

Nowadays we have bulletproof armor, and I doubt it's tougher than shardplate. At the very least it'll take one hit, and even then there's no reason not to wear it considering it enhances you rather than weighs you down.

Have crossbows firing sharpened gems infused with stormlight. From what I can tell they'd be immune to windrunning, and enough of those can be quite lethal to even Szeth's speed. Adding plate poses a problem until you get bigger gems.

That armor works on an entirely different set of principles than medieval plate. However I would guess, given how much damage shardplate can take from mundane weapons that it'll stop a bullet or two per plate at minimum. Likely more. Dalinar takes dozens of hits to the armor per location in that last fight and it still didn't shatter. That's a whole lot of durability. Much more than plate offers and it seems to operate more like a ceramic strike plate than steel... I'd say it would work pretty well... Headshots from a good sniper would cause problems and heavy machine guns would too(more from blunt force trauma and staggering than damage to the armor), but even the best assault rifle will take a while to get through plate.

[Voidus]

Possibly relevant, how does surge binding affect liquids? Possibly using boiling oil traps, or anything to slwo a surge binder down.

Depends what Surgebinder, and Soulcasters would just transmute it, Windrunners have a reverse lashing for falling liquids and can just basic lash themselves through any ground based flames, although I'd be very interested to see what would happen if you sprayed a full lashing into a fire, covering a windrunner in oil might work but how you'd achieve that I don't know.

[Observer]

My personal anti-windrunner and shardbearer duo defense plan simply involves and falling ceiling. You have to touch it to lash it, and by then you're already flat as a pancake. In the event of a soulcaster I'd probably have to layer it to avoid the whole thing from turning to smoke.

[Kurkistan]

My personal anti-windrunner and shardbearer duo defense plan simply involves and falling ceiling. You have to touch it to lash it, and by then you're already flat as a pancake. In the event of a soulcaster I'd probably have to layer it to avoid the whole thing from turning to smoke.

You'd have to be careful with it, since soulcasting probably relies on aggregated Cognitive aspects (i.e. the wall is a wall, not a collection of stones), so any ceiling which was whole for a reasonable period of time could be soulcast all at the same time.

I suppose successive plates, dropping very quickly one after the other, might work, not giving the target time to recover.

[Voidus]

Well one of the Soulcasting orders can probably teleport and Windrunners can as good as by multiple lashing themselves they can move fast. Also given that Kaladin survived that fall from the top of the chasms to the bottom (Before he was even good at using stormlight and with minimal Light left) I don't think a few tiles are going to do much. Might slow them down long enough to pincushion them with some arrows though.

[Observer]

Well one of the Soulcasting orders can probably teleport and Windrunners can as good as by multiple lashing themselves they can move fast. Also given that Kaladin survived that fall from the top of the chasms to the bottom (Before he was even good at using stormlight and with minimal Light left) I don't think a few tiles are going to do much. Might slow them down long enough to pincushion them with some arrows though.

I don't care how much of a fall you can survive, massive steel blocks landing on you is bound to do some heavy damage. If you were to cut the ceiling into layers an dkeep them seperate, and then have them fall a few seconds apart, you'd foil the soulcaster. If the windrunner knows what's coming they might be able to shoot out the door, so you'd need to seal them in long enough for it to work, though the ideal condition is for them not to see it coming at all.

Crazy idea: Shardblade cannons. Put the blade in a crossbow or a cannon of some kind and fire it at the sucker. If he manages to dodge, will it out of existance and pull it back down.

[SirShemmington VI]

Against wind runners, coat your ceiling in some kind of crazyily sticky substance. Which they wouldn't have invented but it work. Maybe some kind of fabrial.

Against shard plate, could primitive smoke grenades or flash bangs work? If you could limit there visabilty it wouldn't be hard to hit them n the back of the head with a hammer.

[Observer]

Against wind runners, coat your ceiling in some kind of crazyily sticky substance. Which they wouldn't have invented but it work. Maybe some kind of fabrial.

Against shard plate, could primitive smoke grenades or flash bangs work? If you could limit there visabilty it wouldn't be hard to hit them n the back of the head with a hammer.

One of the better ideas I've heard yet. Add a fabrial to the walls and ceiling to get them stuck to it, and the find a way to blind them. Heck, even filling the room with steam would work well

[Voidus]

I don't think most fabrials would affect an infused windrunner and it would need quite a bit of stormlight to be able to keep him stuck to it when he changes gravity back down again, possibly multiple times, he'd likely just fall out of his shoes anyway Smoke grenades and flashbangs are a great idea though. On the falling roof idea I think that it's very comparable to falling a huge distance like the chasms, it's the exact same situation just from the opposite direction, and keep in mind that if they survive for only a few seconds they can just lash the ceiling back up.

[Observer]

So, it's back to gigantic crossbows in a smoky room, preferably unlit to make the windrunner stand out like a naked man at a funeral. Then we pound them.

[ThunderClassy]

Why do you think that it's one of the Soulcasting orders that can Teleport? I think that Teft mentioned that the Kgnights Radiant could but how do you know which order?

Also just a thought but what if Soulcasters manage to start chemical warfare on Roshar? They can make Smoke why not mustard gas?

[Observer]

Why do you think that it's one of the Soulcasting orders that can Teleport? I think that Teft mentioned that the Kgnights Radiant could but how do you know which order?

Also just a thought but what if Soulcasters manage to start chemical warfare on Roshar? They can make Smoke why not mustard gas?

Because smoke is one of their 10 main elements. Like Jasnah said, blood, being an element, is easy. Water is difficult. Mustard gas would probably be next to impossible.

[Voidus]

Actually the essence is Vapor not smoke, so from what we currently know mustard gas would be no more difficult as long as you actually knew what it was, but Jasnah had trouble with something she'd just seen and smelt, creating something which doesn't even exist yet would be nigh on impossible I think.

Oh and Jasnah Soulcasting at a distance is the main reason for speculating that she has the teleporting surge.