Is Savantism Additive or Multiplicative?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

A thought just occurred to me, there are Allomancers of differing potency, like with Vin and Elend. They have an innate difference in terms of sheer power without Savantism. Then there is the boost one can gain from Savantism itself.

My question is thus, do you think a Lerasium Mistborn and Diluted Mistborn gain the same level of boost from Savantism or would the Lerasium Mistborn be a better Savant?

I think that it might be multiplicative, because there are two very different levels of Investiture flowing through them, which would cause more warping of the soul. 

Or if we go from another angle, a Misting having their powers doubled or more by additional spikes granting the same power they already have, like Steel Inquisitors with Bronze Spikes to double their Seeking. Do you think they'd have the same level of boost from becoming Savants as regular Seekers, or are they getting a little more from their Bronze Allomancy being stronger?

[Treamayne]

10 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

A thought just occurred to me, there are Allomancers of differing potency, like with Vin and Elend. They have an innate difference in terms of sheer power without Savantism. Then there is the boost one can gain from Savantism itself.

Neither.
Savantism does not increase your power at all. Things like Hemalurgy or being a Lerasium Mistborn are a Quantitative difference. Savantism is a Qualitative difference - you are better at things a normal Misting can already do (like a Slider Savant learning to pin their bubble to themselves so it moves with them).  The investiture has premeated your spiritweb to the point that it has malformed and adapted to the power - your understanding of the power is deeper, your finesse improves, your skill in finding other ways to use the power broadens. You aren't 'stronger' - just more skilled (and, of course, any repurcussions the malformed spiritweb may cause like Spook and  Kaza).

WoB:

Spoiler

Questioner

There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power.

Questioner

So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes.

Questioner

So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

 

Edited Thursday at 01:05 AM by Treamayne
SPAG

[Cephandrious Maxtori Fae/Faer]

I am inclined to believe hemalurgy is additive, because you're adding the allomantic/feruchemical potential of the spike donor to the recipient's spiritweb, but savantism is multiplicative, since stronger Allomancers are drawing larger quantities of investiture from Preservation, so more investiture is affecting their body than a weaker Allomancer burning the same amount of metal, the rational mind will see this.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

32 minutes ago, Cephandrious Maxtori said:

I am inclined to believe hemalurgy is additive, because you're adding the allomantic/feruchemical potential of the spike donor to the recipient's spiritweb, but savantism is multiplicative, since stronger Allomancers are drawing larger quantities of investiture from Preservation, so more investiture is affecting their body than a weaker Allomancer burning the same amount of metal, the rational mind will see this.

I know Hemalurgy is additive, I was referring to becoming a Savant when having a double-boosted power from Hemalurgy. As a second comparision to Lerasium Allomancers in terms of more potent Allomancers and how the extra power might effect their boost from Savantism. 

But yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. More power per second will cause greater warping of the soul.