AonDor is overpowered

[asharan the truthwatcher]

When I discovered AonDor, I really likes this system, but, then, I learn that it can do everything that other invested arts can. I found this very disapointing, brandon has set limits to investiture, what he shows a new art what does it mean if Raoden could already do this?

I am curious to hear your opinion.

Edited April 1 by asharan the truthwatcher

[Through The Living Grub He/Him]

1 hour ago, asharan the truthwatcher said:

When I discovered AonDor, I really likes this system, but, then, I learn that it can do everything that other invested arts can. I found this very disapointing, brandon has set limits to investiture, what he shows a new art what does it mean if Raoden could already do this?

I am curious to hear your opinion.

Raoden could do almost anything. However, AonDor is severely limited by the fact that Raoden would have to know so many Aons and modifiers. Plus, AonDor is somewhat limited in combat because you have to draw an Aon instead of using a mental command to use a Surge. Aluminum may also be a counter, or at least offer protection from, an Elantrian.

[Returned he/him]

AonDor does have its limitations, specifically location, knowledge, skill, and time. We've seen that the location piece can be addressed, though how easy that is to set up is not clear. The remaining limitations suggest that while AonDor can replicate any other Invested art it is unlikely that any given practitioner will be able to do so comprehensively. A practitioner probably has better options than imitating other specific arts, and the amount of effort involved in general duplication seems extremely high. For a potential example, look at how much time and effort it's taken Khriss to even document the details of Invested arts, never mind figuring out how to imitate them precisely through AonDor.

Regardless, overall I think we're going to see more egregious muddying of what each art can do as Cosmere-dwellers learn more about them over time. AonDor will be the least of it.

Edited April 1 by Returned

[Treamayne]

Welcome to the Shard. Thank you for your Intro Post to let us know what you have and have-not read. Please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful forum info and tips. 

6 hours ago, asharan the truthwatcher said:

When I discovered AonDor, I really likes this system, but, then, I learn that it can do everything that other invested arts can. I found this very disapointing, brandon has set limits to investiture, what he shows a new art what does it mean if Raoden could already do this?

I am curious to hear your opinion.

Every art does have it's limitations - including AonDor. Did you notice that it took months of study and many many hours of practice for Raoden to accomplish an Elsecalling via Aon Tia at the climax? (Stormlight Archive)

Spoiler

Something a Radiant with the Surge of Transportation does normally without having to spend minutes writing out an equation in the air and calculating the correct distance and direction

AonDor's limitations are in how hard it is to use, not great for combat and unlikely to be useful to any but the most dedicated scholars of the art. Even Galladon said that Pre-Reod most Elantrians never really used AonDor much - preferring the ones that did know how to use it to make teh Fabrials other Elantrians could activate for a static effect (like the light panels using Aon Ashe)

Strong, yes. Versitile, yes. Extremely limited (one country only, weak anywhere else and requires a very hefty knowledge/practice investment to be useful). 

[Qianweilian He/him]

16 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Welcome to the Shard. Thank you for your Intro Post to let us know what you have and have-not read. Please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful forum info and tips. 

Every art does have it's limitations - including AonDor. Did you notice that it took months of study and many many hours of practice for Raoden to accomplish an Elsecalling via Aon Tia at the climax? (Stormlight Archive)

  Hide contents

Something a Radiant with the Surge of Transportation does normally without having to spend minutes writing out an equation in the air and calculating the correct distance and direction

AonDor's limitations are in how hard it is to use, not great for combat and unlikely to be useful to any but the most dedicated scholars of the art. Even Galladon said that Pre-Reod most Elantrians never really used AonDor much - preferring the ones that did know how to use it to make teh Fabrials other Elantrians could activate for a static effect (like the light panels using Aon Ashe)

Strong, yes. Versitile, yes. Extremely limited (one country only, weak anywhere else and requires a very hefty knowledge/practice investment to be useful). 

Which is why bendalloy is one of the best powers for an Elantrian.

[Frustration]

17 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Welcome to the Shard. Thank you for your Intro Post to let us know what you have and have-not read. Please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful forum info and tips. 

Every art does have it's limitations - including AonDor. Did you notice that it took months of study and many many hours of practice for Raoden to accomplish an Elsecalling via Aon Tia at the climax? (Stormlight Archive)

  Reveal hidden contents

Something a Radiant with the Surge of Transportation does normally without having to spend minutes writing out an equation in the air and calculating the correct distance and direction

AonDor's limitations are in how hard it is to use, not great for combat and unlikely to be useful to any but the most dedicated scholars of the art. Even Galladon said that Pre-Reod most Elantrians never really used AonDor much - preferring the ones that did know how to use it to make teh Fabrials other Elantrians could activate for a static effect (like the light panels using Aon Ashe)

Strong, yes. Versitile, yes. Extremely limited (one country only, weak anywhere else and requires a very hefty knowledge/practice investment to be useful). 

I'd say that the ability for Aons to be prewritten is one of the most powerful things about it.

Just like how almost no software would exist if you needed to write out the full thing everytime you wanted to use it, the ability to make it once and it's useable forever is unreal.

All it takes is for Elantrians to make an easy way to share complex aon commands and any one of them has the ability to do next to anything.

And once they get conputers and printers they only need a way to make printed aons work and it's all over

Edited April 2 by Frustration

[Treamayne]

52 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I'd say that the ability for Aons to be prewritten is one of the most powerful things about it.

Just like how almost no software would exist if you needed to write out the full thing everytime you wanted to use it, the ability to make it once and it's useable forever is unreal.

All it takes is for Elantrians to make an easy way to share complex aon commands and any one of them has the ability to do next to anything.

And once they get conputers and printers they only need a way to make printed aons work and it's all over

Sure, but now you are using Fabrials. It may be a Fabrial constructed by AonDor, but it is still a Fabrial that can only do X (sometimes X, Y and Z) - which also just reinforces my point. AonDor is very flexible and powerful - with the limitation that it takes education, practice, and planning. Sure you can pre-build an Aon Daa braclet that may be able to make an attack like was used in the climax whenever the Elantrian touches and activates it. Just first source the materials, use Shai-like skill to correctly etch all of the Aons and modifiers required to produce the effect you want and, eventually, you will have a tool that is combat capable. (Mistborn Spoilers)

Spoiler

As opposed to a Coinshot's process of

• Swallow steel
• Push metal

Please do not get me wrong, I love AonDor. It is my favorite MoI (with Awakening a close second and Feruchemy third) - I was merely trying to point out that Sanderson did give AonDor Limitations - they are just different limitations than the kind of thing that restricts other MoIs.

 

Edited April 2 by Treamayne
SPAG

[PanLin they/he]

 

On 4/1/2026 at 2:59 PM, asharan the truthwatcher said:

it can do everything that other invested arts can.

In addition to the restrictions others have mentioned, I think the biggest drawback of AonDor is that you have to understand exactly what it is you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve it. A big example is the ending of Elantris, where the teleportation only worked because Adien knew the exact distance and heading to go from A to B.

With feruchemy, you can innately tap and store an attribute without thinking about it. Allomantic emotion manipulation doesn't need you to understand specific differences between emotions or how they affect brain chemistry, it just needs an Intent to allow your cognitive aspect to interact directly with the target's. When Awakening something, a Command can be fairly simple as it's filtered through your Intent to get the result you're hoping for.

In all of these cases, Invested Arts work by achieving some end result directly, where AonDor is method-led; it's not just "move us to Teoras" (which might be how an Elsecaller achieves the same thing), it's "spatially translate specifically these people x paces in a straight line at this specific heading".

Sure, AonDor can theoretically do anything, like a programming language for the Cosmere. The obvious parallel drawback to that is that you need to give the 'computer' extremely specific instructions; if you forget one semi-colon or use the wrong input format or whatever, the spell will either fail or have wildly different results. AonDor doesn't sympathetically pick up on the caster's Intent in the way other invested arts do.

[Espella]

Aside from the main limitation most people here have mentioned of needing a lot of knowledge and precision to get the intended result, I expect efficiency of investiture use might be a problem later down the line. Most uses of AonDor we've seen so far rely on being in the giant power amplifier that is Elantris, and we know the AonDor gets weaker the further you are from Elantris, so I expect it probably takes a lot of investiture to get it up and running compared to some of the other magic systems. Obviously we've seen people using it in other locations, but given that when we see if done in Lost Metal it required a huge supply of purified Dor (though I don't remember if it clarified how much of that was for the forging and how much was for AonDor usage after the fact) I expect you probably need a large source of investiture to pull from i general to make it work, which is all well and good if you're in Elantris but in other places you'd want to just hire out somebody or get a fabrial/medallion/etc. with the actual power you want rather than get an AonDor replication of it.

The fact that our few glimpses of future era technology as far as I can remember have hit on pretty much every major magic system we know of except for the Selish ones (outside of using seons for communications) might support this, with AonDor-based tech being uncommon because they have way higher investiture requirements so people outside Sel don't usually want them. Though I suppose it could also just be that the Elantrians don't like sharing, haven't seen enough of what they're up to at that point to really say one way or another.

[WeLoveMoash]

On 4/2/2026 at 10:51 AM, Treamayne said:

Sure, but now you are using Fabrials. It may be a Fabrial constructed by AonDor, but it is still a Fabrial that can only do X (sometimes X, Y and Z) - which also just reinforces my point. AonDor is very flexible and powerful - with the limitation that it takes education, practice, and planning. Sure you can pre-build an Aon Daa braclet that may be able to make an attack like was used in the climax whenever the Elantrian touches and activates it. Just first source the materials, use Shai-like skill to correctly etch all of the Aons and modifiers required to produce the effect you want and, eventually, you will have a tool that is combat capable. 

This is well put. To me, this feels fine and surprisingly balanced (not that the various Arts need to be balanced in the first place).

To put it in D&D terms, MOST of the different Arts across the Cosmere are like Sorcerers - they have a relatively narrow, but easily accessible set of powers that users can use almost instinctively. The Aetherbound are kind of like Warlocks, who get powers from a "patron". Radiants are kind of like Paladins - magic powers, that are tied to a strict code of conduct. 

AonDor practicioners are like the Wizards of the Cosmere. If they've had the prep time, and have the right spells prepared for the situation, good luck - theyre probably amongst the most capable entities in the universe. Conversely though, they need that prep time - if they're caught out and forced to improvise, they're vastly more limited.