If Ranette Made Radiant Hazekiller Rounds

[Duxredux he/him]

It took me a bit longer to get to it, since it also took me longer than most to get around to reading TLM but I finally read the thread, all 9 pages, of Wax vs Kal. I decided not to revive that particular topic, but I had an alternate and somewhat related thought to ideas in the thread.

Assume Ranette were to get off world and then see the various Invested abilities throughout the Cosmere, starting with the Knights Radiant. We know she we would immediately go back to her workshop and make guns and ammo to kill them. Optionally she is making it for a specific person to use, Wax or maybe even Marsh. What do we think she would come up with? What can we come up with? The idea is to come up with stuff that would give a Scadrian, maybe an Allomancer or Feruchemist their best shot (pun intended) at taking on a Radiant, not saying that they will win.

First, let's look at Plate. That handcannon designed for Wax to fire while tapping Iron is probably his best bet. Notably, Wax doesn't actually have to flat out break open Plate, he just has to hit enough times that it makes it no longer worth the Stormlight to keep repairing the Plate. If you have a weapon that can consistently damage Plate, it's effectively the same as landing a hit that the Radiant needs to heal, except the Plate makes the Radiant a much bigger target. There's at least one old thread on Shardbearers dealing with cannon fire, so there are responses, but it would take

Next is dealing with Stormlight healing. The gun and bullets designed to use against Hemalurgists tapping Gold, the one specifically designed to blow limbs off is probably the best bet. That one has the advantage of causing catastrophic bodily harm, being costly to heal, and if you're lucky either damaging the gemstones of their Stormlight reserve or blasting it away from the body so they're either retrievable by the gunman or too far from the Radiant.

Reverse Lashings are a bit tricky to deal with, though Ranette should grasp the concept pretty quickly as a Lurcher. She (meaning Brandon and his team of physicists) would probably come up with something better than just Aluminum rounds. Placement of the Reverse Lashing is also important - is it on a shield or did the Windrunner just paint the ground in front of them? Wax's best bets are probably Aluminum, offset his shot so that it will curve and hit anyway (tricky, but unlike a Lurcher a Reverse Lashing won't just decide to stop Pulling if it can see you aren't aiming at it), or try to maneuver so that the Reverse Lashing is behind the Radiant so it adds even more force to the round. All very tricky, but Wax has superhuman precision with guns, and if anyone could pull it off it would be him.

For Lightweavers, it's messy, but Wax's grenade launcher should paint the room with shrapnel and let him sense irregularities from the visible (and, well, see what wasn't blown up). Not the gun to break out when chasing someone who tries to fade into a crowded street.

Soulcasting, the best bet is probably to take them down before they know you're there. It's just too unpredictable to really plan for, since they can make so much stuff. Maybe Tineye rounds or grenades to thoroughly disrupt their concentration, but that still might not work for an experienced Soulcaster. I do wonder if causing major damage to whatever the Soulcaster is trying to Transform would disrupt the Soulcasting.

Edgedancers would be difficult to hit and chase, but probably not much more than a Coinshot. I'm don't think any specialization beyond standard Anti-Radiant rounds would be necessary.

Cohesion and Tension are ones we haven't seen much of and would probably give Ranette trouble. There's probably better options than just tossing grenades at them but I'm not sure what.

Nothing yet for Elsecalling that I can think of. On home turf, Elsecalling may present different challenges on Scadrial than Roshar, especially since we don't know where the Perpendicularities are. 

For fliers using Gravitation, probably just be a good shot. Ranette made you the gun, so you better not blame her for the accuracy or she might shoot you.

Division, standard Anti-Radiant rounds and kill them from a distance. Again, haven't seen enough Division to really know everything we're dealing with.

Bondsmith with probably an army of Radiants protecting them? Gooood luck. ICBM or something.

Squires? Really tough, but the best bet is to kill the Radiant first so the rest lose their powers. Alternately use massive area of effect attacks and try to damage any gemstones in the area or injure the group to drain their overall Stormlight as quickly as possible.

Spoiler

It would be tough, but I think Wax could beat a lot of the Radiants and would only need to resort to plot armor for higher Oaths or specific Orders. Feel free to dispute this statement, but I'd rather not have this thread be only about fringe  combat situations. Ranette sees Roshar and goes back to tinker to give her people their best fighting chance if it came to a battle.

Thoughts?  Additions for other Invested arts?

[Frustration]

18 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

First, let's look at Plate. That handcannon designed for Wax to fire while tapping Iron is probably his best bet. Notably, Wax doesn't actually have to flat out break open Plate, he just has to hit enough times that it makes it no longer worth the Stormlight to keep repairing the Plate. If you have a weapon that can consistently damage Plate, it's effectively the same as landing a hit that the Radiant needs to heal, except the Plate makes the Radiant a much bigger target. There's at least one old thread on Shardbearers dealing with cannon fire, so there are responses, but it would take.

Considering how much stormlight they can hold, they'd probably just tank the shot and run you down regardless. And why is shooting a radiant's plate more effective than shooting them? Living plate doesn't require Stormlight to function, only to repair itself.

19 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

Edgedancers would be difficult to hit and chase, but probably not much more than a Coinshot. I'm don't think any specialization beyond standard Anti-Radiant rounds would be necessary.

Division, standard Anti-Radiant rounds and kill them from a distance. Again, haven't seen enough Division to really know everything we're dealing with.

Coating themselves in abrasion would dramatically weaken the impact of any bullets, and Division would burn them up, though you are going to want to use aluminum bullets anyway, so those can be ignored.

 

Other than that it all looks good, this is really well thought out good job.

[cometaryorbit]

For Reverse Lashings, I'd just go with aluminum bullets.

That's probably the simplest for Stormlight healing too. Though against non-Windrunner Radiants, a possibility is an outer shell made of denser metal (for better penetration) that explodes inside the body, releasing aluminum shards. The Cosmere doesn't have the Hague/Geneva Conventions to ban this!

I wonder if something could be done with sodium or something else that reacts with water? A bullet that breaks open and starts a fire inside the Radiant's body, taking lots of Light to heal the damage?

--

I wish we knew more about the material properties of Plate. Its failure mode isn't the same as RL steel plate. It doesn't seem to deform (bend, dent, etc.) - it cracks (and puffs Light) and then shatters explosively. I think that makes it brittle rather than ductile, though incredibly hard, which is odd compared to RL metal armors. It might be more comparable to hard ceramics used in some modern body armors?

Edited May 12, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

It took me a bit longer to get to it, since it also took me longer than most to get around to reading TLM but I finally read the thread, all 9 pages, of Wax vs Kal. I decided not to revive that particular topic, but I had an alternate and somewhat related thought to ideas in the thread.

Storms bless you!  

I think in most cases it's best to use aluminum bullets that explode into shrapnels when they hit their target. Then Radiants will have to use Stormlight constantly to heal to be alive, which can't be healed as long as shrapnels are there, draining them fast out of Stormlight. Aluminum can’t be reverse lashed, can’t be destroyed by Division, can’t be Soulcasted and likely won't be affected by Abrasion as well - they just need to hit their target. 

Plate will be the most difficult part, as breaking through the plate with aluminum bullets might not be the best way to do so. But considering this WoB, Ranette can coat Vindication's bullets in a thin layer of aluminum, to make it immune to Reverse Lashing, yet still have a hard and dense core capable of destroying plate in 1-3 shots.

Spoiler

Questioner

How many shots would it take for Wax using his gun to break a section of Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the gun... Okay, so Vindication. He could probably... depends on the bullet, cause he's got several styles. But let's just say two or three. There's an argument he could do it with one, with the right shot, the right bullet, in the right moment.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

For illusions just use shotgun with pallets.

[therunner he/him]

Well though out!

Other than that, I agree with most here, Aluminum/aluminum alloy bullets are the best bet.
They inhibit healing to some extent, they cannot be Soulcasted, Reverse Lashed.

Though for 4th Oath and above I don't think any bullet would save you. Even if you break section in 1 shot (which most likely requires Wax's powers to pull off, based on WoB that Plate resists bullets well + what we see of Roseite in TLM), Radiant can still run you down and kill you faster then you can run. For Radiant in Plate you should probably stop thinking bullets, and start thinking RPGs

How to overcome Illusions is interesting problem though.
 

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

  Hide contents

It would be tough, but I think Wax could beat a lot of the Radiants and would only need to resort to plot armor for higher Oaths or specific Orders. Feel free to dispute this statement, but I'd rather not have this thread be only about fringe  combat situations. Ranette sees Roshar and goes back to tinker to give her people their best fighting chance if it came to a battle.

 

I don't think so honestly, give them a backpack of spheres and fighting even a Squire is like fighting like Miles-lite with a side dish of additional powers, and we all saw how difficult fighting Miles was for him.
He could sometimes pull a win I guess, but it would be extremely difficult and conditional on having element of surprise.
What is Wax gonna do against being Soulcasted from distance? Or having stone lashed at his head?

Edited May 12, 2023 by therunner

[IlstrawberrySeed]

45 minutes ago, therunner said:

I don't think so honestly, give them a backpack of spheres and fighting even a Squire is like fighting like Miles-lite with a side dish of additional powers, and we all saw how difficult fighting Miles was for him.
He could sometimes pull a win I guess, but it would be extremely difficult and conditional on having element of surprise.
What is Wax gonna do against being Soulcasted from distance? Or having stone lashed at his head?

Very Lite, Miles can heal from a complete decapitation, I'm pretty sure a squire can't. Aditionally, Miles heals faster and can carry much more, and is experienced with their powers. A squire is inexperienced, by the time their as experienced Wax, their no longer squires.

I would think the best defence against being soulcasted is flaring steel and tapping wheight or having a large number of inserted metalminds messing with their targeting. Still not much, but distance soulcasting is tough for even some radiants, so squires would have to prohibitively specialize to do so, and even then, their likely to become radiants before then.

A stone lashed at the head is actually manageable at distance, and basically a punch at non-managable distances. Blow it up, push against it, or even simply dodge.

[therunner he/him]

16 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Very Lite, Miles can heal from a complete decapitation, I'm pretty sure a squire can't. Aditionally, Miles heals faster and can carry much more, and is experienced with their powers. A squire is inexperienced, by the time their as experienced Wax, their no longer squires.

True, squire probably could not heal decapatation, but even 1st Oath Radiant with enough Stormlight could.
And same goes for Miles, he would have to have enough F-Gold stored and tapping.

And no, experience has nothing to do with being a squire, ability to say Oaths does.
In principle you could have someone ascend to 5th Ideal basically on the spot (there is WoB), and conversely you could have someone stuck as Squire for years.

16 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

I would think the best defence against being soulcasted is flaring steel and tapping wheight or having a large number of inserted metalminds messing with their targeting. Still not much, but distance soulcasting is tough for even some radiants, so squires would have to prohibitively specialize to do so, and even then, their likely to become radiants before then.

That would not do much, there is basically no Investiture in Metalborn when using their powers.
Soulcasters are used to pushing through interference, so that would not  help.

16 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

A stone lashed at the head is actually manageable at distance, and basically a punch at non-managable distances. Blow it up, push against it, or even simply dodge.

Really? Stone lashed with 10g's is manageable?
Ordinary pushed coins are not managable, but stone lashed possibly faster would not be?

And you could not push on stone, it is not metal

Edited May 12, 2023 by therunner

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Very Lite, Miles can heal from a complete decapitation,

I would be stunned if he could, the only way that could even possibly be done is if he was tapping enough to grow a new head before he was decapitated.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

2 minutes ago, therunner said:

True, squire probably could not heal decapatation, but even 1st Oath Radiant with enough Stormlight could.
And same goes for Miles, he would have to have enough F-Gold stored.

And no, experience has nothing to do with being a squire, ability to say Oaths does.
In principle you could have someone ascend to 5th Ideal basically on the spot (there is WoB), and conversely you could have someone stuck as Squire for years.

That would not do much, there is basically no Investiture in Metalborn when using their powers.
Soulcasters are used to pushing through interference, so that would not  help.

Really? Stone lashed with 10g's is manageable?
Ordinary pushed coins are not managable, but stone lashed possibly faster would not be?

And you could not push on stone, it is not metal

Except miles has plenty, and radiants struggle.
Also, Are you sure about radiants regrowing? The whole reason Miles can is because he is constantly tapping enough, a radiant's healing is slow enough that her cognitive self separating should prevent the head from regrowing completely.

I'm pretty sure no-mags on Roshar are less invested than Mistborn. Could be wrong though. And Soulcasters have trouble with no-mags.

Pushed coins have 2 issues: Pushing contest, and spread. If you get defend a pushing contest, you've already lost. And even if you win, the spread of the coins will slowly increase, and cause casualties around. Lashings pretty much send one thing at a time, and due to the origin of force, you won't be flung back, suddenly flung forward, etc.

Some stones are metalic. If it isn't metallic enough to be puched, then you dodge.

 

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

I would be stunned if he could, the only way that could even possibly be done is if he was tapping enough to grow a new head before he was decapitated.

Which he was, all the time. He had enough.

[Frustration]

Just now, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Which he was, all the time. He had enough.

Even TLR had reason to avoid being decapitated, and he was orders of magnitude more powerful than Miles

Spoiler

Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

TWG Posts (April 9, 2008)

 

[IlstrawberrySeed]

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Even TLR had reason to avoid being decapitated, and he was orders of magnitude more powerful than Miles

  Hide contents

Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

TWG Posts (April 9, 2008)

 

Just because we think we know he didn't, doesn't mean it isn't possible. Miles also specialized in gold and experimented, and had much more available at a moment due to having more implants.

The thing is, if miles cannot be decapitated, then radiants cannot either. His healing is the best we've seen so far other than Rays.

[Duxredux he/him]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

I don't think so honestly, give them a backpack of spheres and fighting even a Squire is like fighting like Miles-lite with a side dish of additional powers, and we all saw how difficult fighting Miles was for him.
He could sometimes pull a win I guess, but it would be extremely difficult and conditional on having element of surprise.
What is Wax gonna do against being Soulcasted from distance? Or having stone lashed at his head?

Biggest difference I see is that Miles keeps his Goldminds embedded in his constantly healing flesh. It's hard to get that gold away from him when he effectively has a constantly regenerating barrier around them. Notably, Miles was before Ranette had finished her rounds for Bloodmakers, which I assume uses the same principle as the one for Hemalurgists, separate them from what lets them heal. By contrast, spheres by nature are Investiture stores that have to be externally recharged, and thus have to be removable and replaceable. Okay, maybe eating spheres might be a viable way to get an emergency reserve (and yes, people, notably bridgeman and Sadeas's troops have thought of eating spheres), but I'm willing to bet most Radiants wouldn't do that on a regular basis. It's why the Radiants had to adapt where they hid their pouches because the Fused were specifically targeting them. A grenade placed on a backpack of spheres will give the Radiant major trouble. It's the major advantage of the Anti-Hemalurgy rounds to just straight Aluminum rounds in my opinion. In general, unless you can actually flat out kill a Radiant which is tough, taking out a Radiant means depleting them of Stormlight, and blowing up their gems should work just fine. It would make them more dangerous to Wax, but these exploding rounds probably could be coated in Aluminum to get most of the benefit of the metal.

For that matter, Wax regularly can hit people in the eye with Vindication. How well would a Radiant do with Aluminum rounds going in their eye socket? 

Quote

He could sometimes pull a win I guess, but it would be extremely difficult and conditional on having element of surprise.
What is Wax gonna do against being Soulcasted from distance? Or having stone lashed at his head?

Agreed, as I said it would be tough. That said, this is Wax we're talking about. To quote Wayne: "You can beat anybody, so long as you don't let them fight back properly". Shooting someone in the back while they were on the toilet is a totally viable strategy. Wax will bail if he doesn't think he can win. 

Also, glad people liked the thread! 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Duxredux
clarity and added thought

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Biggest difference I see is that Miles keeps his Goldminds embedded in his constantly healing flesh. It's hard to get that gold away from him when he effectively has a constantly regenerating barrier around them. Notably, Miles was before Ranette had finished her rounds for Bloodmakers, which I assume uses the same principle as the one for Hemalurgists, separate them from what lets them heal. By contrast, spheres by nature are Investiture stores that have to be externally recharged, and thus have to be removable and replaceable. Okay, maybe eating spheres might be a viable way to get an emergency reserve (and yes, people, notably bridgeman and Sadeas's troops have thought of eating spheres), but I'm willing to bet most Radiants wouldn't do that on a regular basis. It's why the Radiants had to adapt where they hid their pouches because the Fused were specifically targeting them. A grenade placed on a backpack of spheres will give the Radiant major trouble. It's the major advantage of the Anti-Hemalurgy rounds to just straight Aluminum rounds in my opinion. In general, unless you can actually flat out kill a Radiant which is tough, taking out a Radiant means depleting them of Stormlight, and blowing up their gems should work just fine. It would make them more dangerous to Wax, but these exploding rounds probably could be coated in Aluminum to get most of the benefit of the metal.

Yeah fair point.
Though I will point out that at least Radiants are fully suffused when they breathe Investiture in, and at that point they are hard to separate from the Investiture.

Conversely, blow of a limb of Bloodmaker, and they have quite a bit less healing available, if they had metalminds in that hand. Radiant could breathe in Stormlight from that hand, so theoretically the don't lose as much.

And swallowing gems is on one hand smart (especially considering how small they are), on the other hand very dumb because of how indigestible they are

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

For that matter, Wax regularly can hit people in the eye with Vindication. How well would a Radiant do with Aluminum rounds going in their eye socket?

If the bullet passes through, they would heal that, possibly within seconds if of 3rd Oath at least (see what Kaladin healed at the start of RoW, severed spine fully healed in the time between two stabs, so probably under a second). Lower Oaths would take longer to heal.
Of course this assumes they are holding Stormlight when it happens.

If the bullet lodged, it would heal everything but the exact site where bullet is stuck, and they would be hindered somewhat (due to brain damage in that location) but alive and functional otherwise.

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Agreed, as I said it would be tough. That said, this is Wax we're talking about. To quote Wayne: "You can beat anybody, so long as you don't let them fight back properly". Shooting someone in the back while they were on the toilet is a totally viable strategy. Wax will bail if he doesn't think he can win.

Well, yeah that is the thing with protagonists, they win.
On the other hand, Wax literally got killed and was saved by Bands ex Machina, so it is not like he is unstoppable.

Any Radiant is like someone with F-gold, and A-pewter dexterity and tirelessness (and quite likely some strength enhancements, based on Radiants matching strength with Warform Parshendi and Regals). Add Surges and they are even more powerful (Gravitation is basically mobility of A-Iron, A-Steel, F-Iron and more).

In ambush sure, he can win, but in ambush nearly anyone can beat nearly anyone else.

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

True, squire probably could not heal decapatation, but even 1st Oath Radiant with enough Stormlight could.

No way. 1st Oath healing is quite poor, Tien was 1st Oath. There is some healing early in the bond, even before Oaths are formally sworn, but it's weak and inefficient. In the middle of the highstorm it can make a big difference (like when Kaladin was left for the storm) but I don't think it could remotely save from decapitation even in a highstorm.  That's more a 3rd ideal and up thing.

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Even TLR had reason to avoid being decapitated, and he was orders of magnitude more powerful than Miles

  Reveal hidden contents

Arabas

The question is about the Lord Ruler's death.  He is basically killed because Vin was able to remove his Feruchemy storage bracelets thus depriving him of his stored youth and strength correct?  Once he didn't have access to these she could simply kill him like a normal man.Now on page 627 about the 3rd paragraph down the Lord Ruler states " I've survived burning and beheadings.  I've been stabbed and sliced, crushed and dismembered." (I also think this is also reference somewhere else in the book that I could not locate)If all it took to drain the Lord Ruler of his power was to remove access to his Feruchemy items wouldn't he have died if he was dismembered?  Remove the storage devices from the trunk of the body and he would die?

Peter Ahlstrom

I asked Brandon about this once, and I'm pretty sure he said the beheading survival part was a lie/exaggeration. I'd have to go back and check my notes.

The Lord Ruler would have reason to want people to believe he had survived beheadings and being burned to ash.

TWG Posts (April 9, 2008)

 

I don't think he was orders of magnitude better in healing - or really meaningfully better at all. Miles was a Gold Compounding Savant too (confirmed by WoB) and Allomantic strength doesn't make TLR tap better.

TLR's much greater Allomantic strength would give him much more health per gram of goldmind burned, yes - but in practice that wasn't really Miles' limiting factor.

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

For that matter, Wax regularly can hit people in the eye with Vindication. How well would a Radiant do with Aluminum rounds going in their eye socket?

Yeah, this would be devastating for any Radiant without Plate. Shallan has enough trouble with a crossbow bolt in the head that an aluminum bullet in the eye would probably incapacitate most 3rd ideal Radiants. Aluminum won't puncture bone very well so it will stay inside the brain.

[therunner he/him]

22 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

No way. 1st Oath healing is quite poor, Tien was 1st Oath. There is some healing early in the bond, even before Oaths are formally sworn, but it's weak and inefficient. In the middle of the highstorm it can make a big difference (like when Kaladin was left for the storm) but I don't think it could remotely save from decapitation even in a highstorm.  That's more a 3rd ideal and up thing.

Was it confirmed he was 1st Oath? Or was he something along the lines of squire? The early Oaths are a bit fuzzy.
Anyhow, without Stormlight there is not much he can heal.
But yeah, decapitation is probably too much for Squire/1st Oath. Though 2nd Oath would probably be enough, they can already heal broken bones fast enough no one notices they broke them.
A lot of Radiant power is limited by amount of Stormlight they have, not necessarily their Oath level.

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 5/12/2023 at 11:30 AM, Duxredux said:

Next is dealing with Stormlight healing. The gun and bullets designed to use against Hemalurgists tapping Gold, the one specifically designed to blow limbs off is probably the best bet. That one has the advantage of causing catastrophic bodily harm, being costly to heal, and if you're lucky either damaging the gemstones of their Stormlight reserve or blasting it away from the body so they're either retrievable by the gunman or too far from the Radiant.

I think that an aluminum bullet designed to fragment inside the Radiant's body would be the most dangerous to them; they can't spit out the aluminum, and the fragments will cause further damage.

It would also be interesting to see if bullets could be designed to carry Anti-Tones to actively repel Investiture once they lodge inside the target (it also may be that they would resist being manipulated by Investiture they are targeting, but that's purely a guess and aluminum already does that better). At the very least, they would cause a lot of pain, which would be distracting to the target.

On 5/12/2023 at 11:30 AM, Duxredux said:

First, let's look at Plate. That handcannon designed for Wax to fire while tapping Iron is probably his best bet. Notably, Wax doesn't actually have to flat out break open Plate, he just has to hit enough times that it makes it no longer worth the Stormlight to keep repairing the Plate. If you have a weapon that can consistently damage Plate, it's effectively the same as landing a hit that the Radiant needs to heal, except the Plate makes the Radiant a much bigger target. There's at least one old thread on Shardbearers dealing with cannon fire, so there are responses, but it would take

Yeah, I'd say that Wax using the Big Gun with huge slugs rather than frag shots would be the most effective for breaking Plate. Can't do much better than that.

Quote

I wonder if something could be done with sodium or something else that reacts with water? A bullet that breaks open and starts a fire inside the Radiant's body, taking lots of Light to heal the damage?

Harmonium bullets, perhaps?

Edited May 13, 2023 by Trusk'our

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah, fragmenting aluminum bullets would be really scary to anyone with Investiture healing.

I agree huge slugs (of dense metals like lead or tungsten, not aluminum) would be the best bet against Plate - except maybe rifle grenades or something like that; I don't know which would be more effective.

8 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Harmonium bullets, perhaps?

Yeah; I was thinking of "mundane" options but harmonium would be more effective.

[Frustration]

On 5/13/2023 at 0:48 PM, Trusk'our said:

Harmonium bullets, perhaps?

Harmonium is too soft, it would deform way too much.

[Voidmaker he/him]

Pretty late to the thread, but

On 5/12/2023 at 5:19 PM, therunner said:

But yeah, decapitation is probably too much for Squire/1st Oath. Though 2nd Oath would probably be enough, they can already heal broken bones fast enough no one notices they broke them.
A lot of Radiant power is limited by amount of Stormlight they have, not necessarily their Oath level.

No way. Even the Lord Ruler himself couldn't heal decapitation, and he had The Well of Ascension-buff PLUS Compounding PLUS the earliest Feruchemy PLUS Lerasium Mistborn strength, the strongest Allomancer/Feruchemist/Compounder known to the world. You'd have to at least be Fourth Ideal with a ton of Stormlgiht to heal a decapitation which still seems difficult, and you might be able to do it on third if you had Honor's Perpendicularity worth of Stormlight but even that seems impossible to do, there is no way a Second Ideal Radiant could heal a decapitation. I think this might just be a different way of looking at it, you might think Stormlight Healing is stronger than it is, or I might think it's weaker than it is.

However, to keep the original discussion going, I'd like to mention something that you said yourself: Radiant power is limited by Stormlight. Shardplate requires Stormlight in order to heal, and Stormlight Healing only works if you have Stormlight to heal with- not to mention all Surges require Stormlight, so I feel like we shouldn't be designing Hazekiller Rounds to kill Radiants in one shot, but to 1. break Shardplate and 2. do as MUCH damage as possible.

So I agree with this:

On 5/13/2023 at 1:48 PM, Trusk'our said:

Yeah, I'd say that Wax using the Big Gun with huge slugs rather than frag shots would be the most effective for breaking Plate. Can't do much better than that.

The Big Gun with huge slugs to break the Plate quickly is an excellent idea. The more Plate you break, the more Stormlight is required to heal it back. Then, you try to fire off something like a Bloodmaker round to knock off an arm or just a general high-caliber round to do as much damage as possible. We might want to use Aluminum rounds for headshots if we can land them, but our main goal here is to FORCE them to heal. Stormlight is a very difficult resource to get, and since I don't think a typical Twinborn would be fighting in a Highstorm and since Dalinar's Perpendicularities don't last that long, our goal should be to deprive them of their Stormlight as fast as possible. This is also why I think squires would be an easy kill- blow off a limb or two, and they'll use up all their Stormlight, and then a regular gun can just blow their brains out before anybody can get more Stormlight to them.

This also makes it a near-foolproof way of slaughtering Radiants entirely. The only thing you have to worry about is your aim and your distance- they get too close and that Radiant Weapon is gutting you. It's also a good idea to just keep moving in general- the more Stormlight they waste moving around trying to get to you, maybe even a Lashing or two, is better.

Division is the real problem, because if you can't break the Plate then there's nothing you can do. For these, aluminum infused/covered/combined rounds are better, just so you can take them down easily. Maybe the Big Gun (Huge Slugs edition) would still work if you can sneak up on them, but that'd be harder with a Spren watching over their shoulder all the time. If you can dual-wield two smaller caliber weapons to just hit them before they can use Division on the bullets, then that'll work too. However, there are two things that should be kept in mind for fighting Division Radiants- they're VERY easy to knock off-balance if you hit them right.

Let's say a Dustbringer is sliding towards you, as you reach for your revolver shakily. Then, you drop it- ripping the Big Gun from your back, and popping them in the chest. No friction, and if the bullet landed right then it should send them spinning out. Chase and keep firing, don't let them get a grip. For Skybreakers, it'll be a lot more difficult. Get them Lashed in the air- let them keep themselves steady. Then you gotta find a way to manually distract them- a team member?- to hit them when they're not expecting it. Once they're spinning in the air, trying to Lash themselves in the right way, you have to hit them with a couple of bullets really fast in order to break the Plate and start using up their Stormlight.

These techniques really only work once, but for Dustbringers if you have enough of an advantage you can knock them down easily, and the Skybreaker might be scared off after you take a good chunk of their Stormlight away. The other orders can only try and dodge your bullets, they can't really 'stop' them- Transformation might work, but I think it'd take longer to change it than to kill somebody. I'll go down the list with every single Radiant and 10 squires they have.

1. 4th Ideal Windrunner, 10 squires. These guys can fly about and can dodge really easily. Stay on the move, if you have Twinborn powers, use them to stay safe. Make sure not to lose interest though, fire a few shots with a less-useful gun at them occasionally to keep them focused on you. Eventually, stop and hold your ground. They'll have to come down to meet you. Dodge the Lashed projectiles accordingly if they send, waste their Stormlight and force them to come to fight you. Depending on how armed the Windrunner Squires are, and your own Invested powers, fight them. If they're super armed and you have none, charge in fast and shoot them on sight. Bloodmaker rounds for the Squires, make them count. The Windrunner will probably come in fast once you take down 3-4, maybe even after the first 1 or 2 if you're slow with it. Big Gun Slug to the Shardplate, swap back to Bloodmaker Rounds on the other gun for the Squires while the Windrunner is disoriented, then repeat. Change it up as much as you can- use a Bloodmaker Round on the Windrunner's Plate occasionally, so you don't have an identifiable pattern. Assuming you have the skill and enough bullets, you can take down the Squires one by one- just keep your distance and don't get overwhelmed if they attack you in a group. The Windrunner will retreat here- but if they charge you, just be ready for them to dodge your bullets and try to hit them as much as possible. Once they're down on the ground, cracked Plate/broken Plate, just unload your guns into them until they stop healing.

2. 4th Ideal Skybreaker, 10 squires- similar to what I originally said, but much easier. These guys only have Gravitation at best, so you can basically do something similar to the Windrunner strategy to get them off you. If you're good at keeping your distance from the Shardblades, then you can keep distance from the Division itself- just don't let them burn you.

3. 4th Ideal Dustbringer, 10 squires- this is the order we know the smallest about. Assuming Abrasion is open to the Squires from the get-go, mirroring the Skybreakers, it's a similar sort of situation but you'll want the high ground this time. Since they can easily slide around towards you to attack you with weapons, stay above them and shoot down on them if you can- or just let them come to you if the Dustbringer themselves are staying in the back. Aim to take off chunks of flesh or limbs or decapitation if you can get it- but be careful, because if you get a glancing blow it might just slide off of them entirely. Repeat with the Dustbringer strategy previously mentioned.

4. 4th Ideal Edgedancer, 10 squires- staying out of range is VERY key here. Do not let them get close, otherwise, they might throw seeds at you and grow plants through you to pin you down. I'll assume the squires don't have this ability, so it's another case of Abrasion squires. Follow the Dustbringer method for the squires, but prioritize staying away from plants and keep eyes on the Edgedancer at all times, while keeping them away so they don't use Regrowth on the squires. Use their frictionless state against them, if you can.

5. 4th Ideal Truthwatcher, 10 squires- you aren't going to face this guy in a straight fight. They're going to try and disorient you with Illumination and then the squires can kill you. Keep a good grip on reality, and don't trust anything. Fire bullets at random to see how they bounce, and what they hit- maybe use frag shots from the Big Gun. Stay away from walls, you don't know if there's a fake wall or not. Keep them as split up as possible, prevent the Truthwatcher's regrowth, stay away from illusions and you're all set.

6. 4th Ideal Lightweaver, 10 squires- Again, another non-fight. Most likely they'll sneak up behind you and stab you while disguised- don't go around with other team members, even if that makes you paranoid. Test illusions to the best of your ability, and don't let them Soulcast you into anything. Prioritize staying agile and firing at things you don't trust. Once you find one of them, kill on sight- they aren't that strong as a Squire, and putting a few holes into Shardplate will make the other squires come out to fight you.

7. 4th Ideal Elsecaller, 10 squires- SEVERELY dangerous. At-range Soulcasting is terrifying. Snipe from a distance, spam frag shots around you- constantly keep an eye behind you. We don't know how Elsecalling fully works yet, but if it's raw teleportation, do not stop moving. I don't know what the squires would have access to, but assumably the same things. Mainly, just let somebody else handle these- I'd like to see if there's any good idea on how to prevent the Elsecallers from turning you to mush.

8. 4th Ideal Willshaper, 10 squires- Watch for teleportation and sneak attacks, get used to the ground under you becoming mush, that'll throw off your aim. Assuming the Squires have the same abilities as the Willshaper, just hop around on your feet and stay as agile as possible- ground turn to mush? Run. Elsecall behind you? Run. Both times, fire behind you. Either they'll leave you alone, or die trying to kill you.

9. 4th Ideal Stoneward, 10 squires- Assumably, they have intense fighting capability and you won't be able to stand your ground against them- literally. Just try your best to get early shots before they get a good handle of the ground. Keep them as far away from you as possible with warning shots and Big Gun Slugs.

10. 4th Ideal Bondsmith, 10 squores- No Shardblade, but a LOT of Stormlight. Rush in, guns blazing, kill that Bondsmith ASAP. No Shardblade to defend with, only Plate (maybe). Tension and Adhesion are still lethal if they get a good grip, so ALSO duck and dodge as fast as possible to stay safe. The quicker the kill, the sooner the Perpendicularity drops.

I'd like to hear your adjustments to these ideas, along with any retorts. I've been typing fast since my battery's almost dead, so I might not respond for a long time- sorry in advance! Have a good day, and I mostly skimmed through everything so sorry if I brought up a point that was already made, or if my dismissal of a Radiant's abilities was too hasty- I'm speedrunning this edit right now, in fact. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Voidwatcher

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Harmonium is too soft, it would deform way too much.

True, I suppose; it's been compared to gold in its malleability.

Perhaps only part (the tip, maybe?) of the bullet is made of Harmonium to fix that?

Actually, I just came up with a new weapon idea... I'll put it in another thread though, since it doesn't really pertain directly to this topic.

[Tea Leaf]

*gulp* So I think I know a way. These may be hard to mass produce...

Outer thin aluminum layer then a mild explosive (most likely a few spores) to break the aluminum shell into bits of shrapnel then having the anti light (whatever your opponent is using) gemstone inside be released.

1 nightblood round coated in aluminum... 1 shot will kill almost anything...

Fabrial accelerator gun... FAST!!! hit them with a small needle of aluminum designed to break inside of them accelerated by heat and expanding air then using some technique using the multiple movement conjoiner

Painrial bullets... this one could be used as an incapacitator

Harmonium and Trellium... I'll let Ranette to figure this one out

Investure + antinvesture gemshots. Aluminum designed to break and bring the investiture together on contact

 

Big gun designed to shoot very small needles of aluminum. Inside it use a technique of spores to make a huge amount of pressure funneled down a long thin pipe, use of a reversed conjoiner (forgot the word) fabrial to further increase pressure before the needle is released down the pipe. The fabrial is at the top to be pulled down the length of the barrel via iron pull, potentially deconjoined and pushed back then reconjoined. Turn this into a half shard to help with the insane pressure. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

9 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

Harmonium and Trellium... I'll let Ranette to figure this one out 

Lol, just came up with this one myself a few minutes ago on another thread 

9 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

Investure + antinvesture gemshots. Aluminum designed to break and bring the investiture together on contact

Also would be a good weapon for mass destruction or countering highly Invested individuals.

10 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

Painrial bullets... this one could be used as an incapacitator

Sounds devious . Might want to make it more like a taser though, or maybe you could make a "tranquilizer" with it, but with pain instead of sleep-inducing drugs?

12 minutes ago, The Last Fæ said:

1 nightblood round coated in aluminum... 1 shot will kill almost anything...

Awakened bullets? That would probably be very effective, though hard to mass-produce.

[Tea Leaf]

54 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Lol, just came up with this one myself a few minutes ago on another thread 

1 hour ago, The Last Fæ said:

I saw that one moments after posting that.

56 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Awakened bullets? That would probably be very effective, though hard to mass-produce.

Insanely hard to produce lots of. (unless you act like the set, then you get hemalurgic empowered people to wield this... with their breath empowered items. Maybe some form of breath compounding? Or Stormlight to breath conversion, possibly feruchemy to stormlight to awakened shots, using a compounder could actually make this method mass producible.)

[IlstrawberrySeed]

On 5/13/2023 at 11:48 AM, Trusk'our said:

It would also be interesting to see if bullets could be designed to carry Anti-Tones to actively repel Investiture once they lodge inside the target (it also may be that they would resist being manipulated by Investiture they are targeting, but that's purely a guess and aluminum already does that better). At the very least, they would cause a lot of pain, which would be distracting to the target.

Anti-tones are better due to letting you effect your bullet. Wax can easily pop plate without worryt of RL/Division/abrasion, Windrunners don't need to worry about creating anchors, etc.

[Trusk'our he/him]

39 minutes ago, IlstrawberrySeed said:

Anti-tones are better due to letting you effect your bullet. Wax can easily pop plate without worryt of RL/Division/abrasion, Windrunners don't need to worry about creating anchors, etc.

Oooo, hadn't thought of that; it might allow you to use Steelpushing on it while it repels Surgebingding.

1 hour ago, The Last Fæ said:

Insanely hard to produce lots of. (unless you act like the set, then you get hemalurgic empowered people to wield this... with their breath empowered items.

You mean like using Hemalurgy to fuel the Awakening instead of Breaths? Might work, depending on how much you can blank the Hemalurgic charge (or if you can find a way to Hemalurgically steal other's Breath- which may be possible so long as it's the original Breath the person had).

1 hour ago, The Last Fæ said:

Maybe some form of breath compounding? Or Stormlight to breath conversion, possibly feruchemy to stormlight to awakened shots, using a compounder could actually make this method mass producible.)

I'm super curious to see whether Compounding a Nicrosilmind filled with Breath allows for Breaths to be generated. That would be really powerful, though I'm all but certain that there are some strings attached- I mean, just look at Hemalurgy's new limitations with Compounding and the number that someone can bear at any given time.