"Soft" Compounding

[Voidus]

Except what he's storing isn't "healing".  It's "health".  I view that as the sort of "Platonic Ideal of Health".  When they store health, they don't get sick more easily, they become less healthy, regardless of the illnesses they could potentially contract.  When they tap it, they don't gain the ability to heal faster, they get themselves that much closer to the ideal of health.  That would mean he only really needs to have 100% of the ideal of health stored at any given time to return to full health even from a beheading or explosion, so while that's a lot of health to store in gold normally (since you probably can't store it at a very high rate without killing yourself, and certainly without crippling yourself badly while you do), and probably impossible for a non-compounder, it's not the crazy high rate of storage/tapping it would otherwise imply.

 

jW

I doubt it otherwise the gap between normal Bloodmakers and compounders would be practically non-existent. Storing 20% health for 5 hours would give you a full hour of complete invulnerability.

[kroen]

Do we know for a fact that a gold compounder can survive beheading? Yes, there were rumors and stories that TLR survived beheading, but until we have proof I regard them as what they are- rumors. I find it difficult to believe gold compounding can regrow an entire head. And even if it could, what about the memories in the decapitated head? wouldn't the new head be a blank slate?

[Jondesu]

I doubt it otherwise the gap between normal Bloodmakers and compounders would be practically non-existent. Storing 20% health for 5 hours would give you a full hour of complete invulnerability.

But what if 20% of health was completely crippling to store, and possibly deadly?  Besides, it's not necessarily a percentage in the first place. What if there's some theoretical "amount" of full health that would have to be stored, and let's say normal compounders can store a maximum of 1 unit of health an hour, but it takes 30000 to restore you to full health from one of those situations.  Normal Bloodmakers would never reach 3.5 years of storing at the maximum rate, but with compounding he could reach that in an evening potentially.  Obviously I'm not doing any complicated math in that calculation, but just using it as an example.

 

jW

[Voidus]

Do we know for a fact that a gold compounder can survive beheading? Yes, there were rumors and stories that TLR survived beheading, but until we have proof I regard them as what they are- rumors. I find it difficult to believe gold compounding can regrow an entire head. And even if it could, what about the memories in the decapitated head? wouldn't the new head be a blank slate?

I think there was a WoB that complete beheading would have killed TLR but Miles has definitely survived what should be equivalent damage (Point blank grenade, shotgun blasts to the face) and was fine so it's not entirely clear.

Gold healing is heavily tied into cognitive aspects so replacing memories isn't too implausible. 

 

But what if 20% of health was completely crippling to store, and possibly deadly?  Besides, it's not necessarily a percentage in the first place. What if there's some theoretical "amount" of full health that would have to be stored, and let's say normal compounders can store a maximum of 1 unit of health an hour, but it takes 30000 to restore you to full health from one of those situations.  Normal Bloodmakers would never reach 3.5 years of storing at the maximum rate, but with compounding he could reach that in an evening potentially.  Obviously I'm not doing any complicated math in that calculation, but just using it as an example.

 

jW

I think we have WoB that 20% is about right and it is based on multipliers rather than flat values.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Voidus

[Edgedancer]

I doubt it otherwise the gap between normal Bloodmakers and compounders would be practically non-existent. Storing 20% health for 5 hours would give you a full hour of complete invulnerability.

Adding a couple of f!goldmechanics revealed in Shadows of Self

Sickness doesn't actually get healed by a goldmind, the sympthoms only get counteracted for a moment, implying that the process doesn't speed up how the body deals with the cause of the ailment and healing from it but smply brings it closer to the ideal and in the case of sickness other lifeforms such as bacterias don't get affected in contrast to a wound.

[Jondesu]

Add to that the quote from Wayne about him storing as much health as he can while still being able to move, and by the end of the day still only barely being able to heal a scratch.  While there's likely some exaggeration there, we can still assume it would take a high amount of "health" to heal a potentially mortal wound, but it doesn't have to be millions of times faster than normal (since it's not about speed, but amount).

 

jW

[Voidus]

Add to that the quote from Wayne about him storing as much health as he can while still being able to move, and by the end of the day still only barely being able to heal a scratch.  While there's likely some exaggeration there, we can still assume it would take a high amount of "health" to heal a potentially mortal wound, but it doesn't have to be millions of times faster than normal (since it's not about speed, but amount).

 

jW

It'd be the opposite, he would just be either able to heal back to normal or he wouldn't it shouldn't be distinguished by whether it's a scratch or getting decapitated. And I honestly don't think Wayne was exaggerating, how long does a scratch usually take to heal? A day or so at least so even if he were capable of storing all of his health it would be a few days of storing before he could erase even a scratch.

 

Adding a couple of f!goldmechanics revealed in Shadows of Self

Sickness doesn't actually get healed by a goldmind, the sympthoms only get counteracted for a moment, implying that the process doesn't speed up how the body deals with the cause of the ailment and healing from it but smply brings it closer to the ideal and in the case of sickness other lifeforms such as bacterias don't get affected in contrast to a wound.

I remember it being said that sickness was harder to heal but not that it was impossible.

 

 

It also washed away his sniffles for the moment, though those would return. It was hard to heal from diseases with a metalmind for some reason.

Hard but not impossible. Which makes sense, even though the symptoms are relatively minor it takes quite a bit of time to recover from illnesses. 

[Edgedancer]

I remember it being said that sickness was harder to heal but not that it was impossible.

 

Hard but not impossible. Which makes sense, even though the symptoms are relatively minor it takes quite a bit of time to recover from illnesses. 

If he was simply healing faster then he shouldn't necessarily notice anything at all, though. Afterall even if it's just the same process faster then getting over the sickness a day earlier shouldn't really change how I feel right in the middle of it.

Edited October 10, 2015 by Edgedancer

[Ari]

Where did you get that from? And having more than you started with suggests at the most additive effects not multiplicative. 

On TLR we have WoB that he stayed old unnecessarily I believe, he didn't need to do it.

More importantly if it was multiplicative it wouldn't ever run out, he only needs to fill the first metalmind he intends to burn with his own stores. Let's take Wax's example of it being a 10x multiplier, TLR stores one metalmind with 10 years worth of being half age, then burns it getting 100 years, he now immediately burns that getting a thousand years, burning that gives 10,000 then 100,000 then a million all with just 5 metalminds getting burned. If on the other hand it's an additive process it goes from 10 years to say 20 then burning that one gives 30 then 40 then 50 then 60 and so on, each burn only gives ten additional years instead of  multiplying the entire store by 10.

 

He needed to get more youth out of burning metalminds as he aged further and further beyond his normal lifespan. Eventually, regardless of how compounding works, he would reach a point where either his ability to source Atium, the speed at which he could burn feruchemical Youth, or his ability to store youth would run out.

 

Also, it's worth remembering, TLR was the only one who know about compounding at the time, so he may not have thought to put some of his burned youth into new metalminds to compound even faster. That may be an innovation on new!Scadrial due to increased knowledge of Feruchemy, and due to Twinborns.

 

You are confused. The reason there was a time limit is because there is an upper limit to how much compounding can add to the charge. Or, if you see compounding as multiplying the charge, how much the metal can be filled. I am still unsure wich is it.

 

Yeah, WoB are rather vague on that too. I'll definitely accept it's possible I'm confused about this.

 

I had thought that the amount of feruchemical storage in a burnmind (metalmind created to be compounded) would determine the length you could burn the compounded power, and that allomancy would determine the "rate of flow" for the power. So if your metalmind was half empty, you'd eventually fall back to regular allomancy before completely burning the burnmind.

 

If it doesn't work like that, burnminds are ridiculously easy to create and there would be little downside to compounders of affordable metals making huge amounts of them with no up-front investment. I should look into whether the books and/or existing WoBs clarify this at all, but from how careful Brandon is in designing his magic systems, I expect there's some reasonable limits to compounding as otherwise the economics of being a compounder mean you'd rarely have an incentive to tap metalminds at all, unless you weren't wealthy and your metal was valuable.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Ari

[Voidus]

He needed to get more youth out of burning metalminds as he aged further and further beyond his normal lifespan. Eventually, regardless of how compounding works, he would reach a point where either his ability to source Atium, the speed at which he could burn feruchemical Youth, or his ability to store youth would run out.

 

Also, it's worth remembering, TLR was the only one who know about compounding at the time, so he may not have thought to put some of his burned youth into new metalminds to compound even faster. That may be an innovation on new!Scadrial due to increased knowledge of Feruchemy, and due to Twinborns.

 

 

Yeah, WoB are rather vague on that too. I'll definitely accept it's possible I'm confused about this.

 

I had thought that the amount of feruchemical storage in a burnmind (metalmind created to be compounded) would determine the length you could burn the compounded power, and that allomancy would determine the "rate of flow" for the power. So if your metalmind was half empty, you'd eventually fall back to regular allomancy before completely burning the burnmind.

 

If it doesn't work like that, burnminds are ridiculously easy to create and there would be little downside to compounders of affordable metals making huge amounts of them with no up-front investment. I should look into whether the books and/or existing WoBs clarify this at all, but from how careful Brandon is in designing his magic systems, I expect there's some reasonable limits to compounding as otherwise the economics of being a compounder mean you'd rarely have an incentive to tap metalminds at all, unless you weren't wealthy and your metal was valuable.

He definitely would have run out eventually but I don't think it would have happened for a very long time, like millions or even billions of years down the line.

He also definitely did restore his charge as shown by the removal of the bracers being what killed him.

[Moogle]

Yeah, TLR's problem was that he was compounding a trait that naturally disappears ad infinitum, and has long since gone past the point where he even had enough naturally to be alive. He needs more and more tapped age to maintain his appearance, which means he is draining his charges faster each day and needs to burn more frequently. Eventually he'll have to burn nonstop, and after a while that won't be enough either.

 

Technically, the problem isn't that he'd have to burn non-stop; he could just duralumin burn his metalminds and tap Feruchemical steel to shove them down his throat. The problem is more that he'd run out of atium, and only so much is being produced at one time.

 

If it doesn't work like that, burnminds are ridiculously easy to create and there would be little downside to compounders of affordable metals making huge amounts of them with no up-front investment.

 

They're utterly easy to create no matter what model you consider. Take a flake of metal, store for the few minutes it would take to maximize it, then burn it and put it all in a slightly larger flake. Repeat.

 

Whether or not the charge is multiplied or not is irrelevant, Compounders just plain have nigh-infinite stores of whatever trait they want. (Exception: expensive metals. Miles had troubles funding his addiction.)

 

Yes, it's overpowered. So are Steelrunners. Something being OP hasn't stopped Sanderson before.

[Yata]

Technically, the problem isn't that he'd have to burn non-stop; he could just duralumin burn his metalminds and tap Feruchemical steel to shove them down his throat. The problem is more that he'd run out of atium, and only so much is being produced at one time.

 

It's unclear if you may store all the youthness made by a Durallumin-powered Atiummind. Or if your Feruchemical Storage-limit apply also at the compounding

Edited October 11, 2015 by Yata

[Moogle]

It's unclear if you may store all the youthness made by a Durallumin-powered Atiummind. Or if your Feruchemical Storage-limit apply also at the compounding

 

There is no real limit to Feruchemical storing, is there?

 

Like, you can't store below a certain amount of strength or health because you'll die, but when you have excess amounts via regular Compounding, you can store them just fine to my knowledge.

[Yata]

There is no real limit to Feruchemical storing, is there?

 

Like, you can't store below a certain amount of strength or health because you'll die, but when you have excess amounts via regular Compounding, you can store them just fine to my knowledge.

Well I have to misunderstanding the whole thing until now then.

I understood that there is a upper limit on the storable amount, if this is 50%, 70%, ecc... is meaningless but I thought that there is a upperlimit (not the 100% of course XD ), like if you have a pipe of X size. It can't pass more than X attribute at time.

Edited October 11, 2015 by Yata

[Voidus]

Well I have to misunderstanding the whole thing until now then.

I understood that there is a upper limit on the storable amount, if this is 50%, 70%, ecc... is meaningless but I thought that there is a upperlimit (not the 100% of course XD ).

Yeah that's just because of what Moogle said about you'd die if you stored more there's no hard limit that prevents you from doing it, characters become completely weightless fairly frequently.

[Yata]

Yeah that's just because of what Moogle said about you'd die if you stored more there's no hard limit that prevents you from doing it, characters become completely weightless fairly frequently.

If this is true I am very ashamed! 

 

Feruchemy is my favorite Manifestation of Investiture and to me it's just became more (very more) powerfull 

[Moogle]

Yeah that's just because of what Moogle said about you'd die if you stored more there's no hard limit that prevents you from doing it, characters become completely weightless fairly frequently.

 

I don't believe Sazed ever becomes completely weightless. There's a hard limit on that stuff, I think, it's just that if you get extra from Compounding you can store that, much like a weightlifter can store more strength at a time than somebody who doesn't exercise.

[DreamEternal]

If this is true I am very ashamed!

Feruchemy is my favorite Manifestation of Investiture and to me it's just became more (very more) powerfull

We never saw a character become fully weightless. And I think there is an old WoB saying the max storing rate depends on the feruchemist's strenght. Edited October 11, 2015 by CognitivePulsePattern

[Voidus]

I don't believe Sazed ever becomes completely weightless. There's a hard limit on that stuff, I think, it's just that if you get extra from Compounding you can store that, much like a weightlifter can store more strength at a time than somebody who doesn't exercise.

We never saw a character become fully weightless. And I think there is an old WoB saying the max storing rate depends on the feruchemist's strenght.

When he's with Marsh he becomes at the very least very, very close to weightless. If there's a hard limit it's very close to 100% for weight at the least.

[Eagle of the Forest Path]

Duralumin-burning a metal wouldn't increase the amount of the trait gained with compounding. Duralumin increases the power output of Allomancy by increasing the burn rate. If a piece of pewter of a certain size contains 10 "units" of effect and a regular burn would use those over (let's say) an hour, then flaring pewter would do the same in 20 minutes, and Duralumin-burning pewter would do it in half a minute (or a few seconds) but it's still the same ten "units".

 

Rashek had diminishing returns from his Atium-compounding because of two reasons, the first is that while he kept himself young-looking he was still aging naturally, so when he was a hundred years old he would have to draw 70 years out of his metalmind to look 30, but at 200 years he would have to draw 170 years etc.

 

The second reason is the purely Feruchemic definition of compounding. Let's say that to increase your weight by 10kg for an hour you need to store 10kg for an hour, but to tap 20 kg for an hour you'd need to store 25kg for an hour, to tap 30kg, store 40kg, and so on.

 

So for TLR, when he met Vin & co. he had to draw 1000 years of youth from his atiumminds, meaning beforehand he had to store an amount of youth vastly greater than that. Still possible, but his atiumminds kept getting drained faster and faster.

(Probably you all already know and understand this, but I didn't see it in the thread, so I thought I'd mention it)

 

For the "soft compounding", storing allomantically gained traits in metalminds, tin and pewter are the obvious candidates. Tin for tinminds, and pewter for pewterminds, goldminds, maybe steelminds, and it might be compatible somehow with storing wakefulness in a bronzemind.

 

How do you feel about storing the mental boost from atium in a zincmind?

Could you store the seeking-sense from allo-bronze in a tinmind?

How about the sense of balance gained from burning pewter, could you put that in a tinmind?

If you use allo-zinc to increase people's personal connections with you, you could store that in a duraluminmind, without people disliking or ignoring you.

And if you trust a soother or rioter enough you could have them use their powers on you so you could charge an electrummind without going all depressed. 

 

You could maybe do some interesting things with allomantic gold or electrum and a coppermind, but it's anyone's guess as to what might happen (well, Brandon Sanderson's guess is the only one that matters, really).

 

PS: We really need different terms for purely Feruchemic compounding and the mixed kind Miles and Rashek use(d). Since the mixed kind is what most people associate with the term "compounding", how about "Inflating" or "Augmenting" for the purely Feruchemic kind?

(and maybe "Shifting" for the soft compounding of this thread)

 

PPS:This isn't really a spoiler, but a linguistic aside of possibly limited interest and definitely limited relevance, but I wanted to get it off my chest.

I'm amazed at how well Brandon chooses his terms, as evidenced by the word "compounding".

 

One of the (real-world) definitions of Compounding is "To form (a resulting mixture) by combining different elements, ingredients, or parts."

Translating to the Cosmere meaning of "Combining Allomancy and Feruchemy to form a (new) effect"

 

On the other hand we have the real-world meaning that comes with "compound interest". Which is an exponential function, bringing to mind (for me) the reduced returns of tapping  larger amounts of a Feruchemic attribute.

 

So the two very different Cosmere meanings of compounding, are a remarkably good fit for the same word.