Theory: Mistings CAN use every single Allomantic ability.

[Moogle]

Um... perhaps you and I have a different definition of a "game"? Because I thought that a game was an interactive experience where you make decisions that affect the outcome and there is an ultimate goal you strive towards, whereas the books are stories, which were written beforehand and have a foregone conclusion.

 

I could, perhaps, be mistaken? Is reading Mistborn a game and I've been playing it wrong?

 

Sorry, this is entirely my fault for not specifying - I was thinking of the Mistborn Adventure Game (though the actual novels mirror it), hence my comments on game balance. Nerf/overpowered are words that have their roots in gaming. Feruchemist rules are broken in the MAG, and as a roleplayer I like to consider game balance (since you'd preferably have most players off at an even power level). Not huge on powergaming, but it is fun to take a glance in that direction every once in a while and consider what you'd do for rules with Shardplate, Shardblades, etc.

 

From a greater Cosmere perspective, though, I would also go so far as to say Feruchemy is the most 'powerful' system, though obviously each has its own strengths. Feruchemy just overrides most. Need a hand in social situations? Feruchemy's got the ability to help social connections, mental speed to keep you witty and on top of things. Need someone dead? Zinc and steel metalminds let you attack them before they can react, pewter lets you kill them unless they're invincible. Almost no one can duel a Feruchemist. Need information? Copperminds, a mobile wikipedia in your grasp. Healing? Why, there's some Feruchemical gold. It's bristling with utility and power. And of course, it works everywhere in the Cosmere, it's cheap to make metalminds (compared to Breath), there's no need to mine new metal or stick your spheres out every few days in a highstorm.

 

Most systems are limited, and while Feruchemy sort of is, it's just wonderfully useful compared to almost everything else. If you've played D&D, a Feruchemist is sort of like a batman wizard. If I had to choose a power in the Cosmere, Feruchemy would be a tough choice to pass out on.

 

But yes, this is horribly off-topic, and I've offended you in this and other threads, so I'll shut up. I'm sorry.

Edited January 14, 2014 by Moogle

[Vortaan he/him]

I don't remember where I've read it but I believe Brandon stated that only Scadrian metal can be burned by Allomancers. Kaladin would have to take with him spheres and Allomancers would have to drag metals with them. Its fair enough imo. On the other hand Kaladin 'could' fuel his abilities without using Stormlight same way Allomancers could fuel their abilities without metals. The way investiture works on Scadrial is a bit more complicated than on Roshar but what about mists? Is it impossible to assume that non-allomancers could draw investiture straight from Mists?

And yes, Atium is overpowered, as is Nightblood and Shardblades/plates.

 

First, AoL era Scadrial doesn't have mists every night, and mists only appear at night. So that's a pretty big handicap. Second, you're assuming that the mists are available for access by anybody, when this doesn't hold up to anything that's happened in the books. Pre-AoL, they were controlled by the remnant of Leras, and then by Kelsier for a little bit, and then Vin. During AoL, it's reasonable to assume that Sazed has control over the mists and isn't likely to just let anyone start leaching off them, particularly since his Investiture on Scadrial manifests in ways that aren't -directly- powered by the mists. Yes, they act as an aid, but no one says "Oops, can't use my pewter, no mists around".

 

Second, Darnam's right that it doesn't seem like Brandon's terribly sure which way he wants to go on letting other worlds metals work for Allomancy, but regardless... a bag of metal dust is probably going to be lighter than a bag of spheres. Surgebinding is pretty powerful, it would make sense to me that the limitation of it is that you have a very finite amount of Stormlight you can work with at a time... unless you're facing an army with gemstones in their beards.

[Oudeis he/him]

... but regardless... a bag of metal dust is probably going to be lighter than a bag of spheres. Surgebinding is pretty powerful, it would make sense to me that the limitation of it is that you have a very finite amount of Stormlight you can work with at a time... unless you're facing an army with gemstones in their beards.

 

A sword, a pair of glasses, a belt-buckle, utensils, a pocketwatch... you can carry a TON of metal on your person without raising eyebrows. Not all of it is "I can swallow it in a heartbeat" variety, but the fact is that if you're trying to stay under the radar (which is the best advantage any worldhopper has), It's a lot easier to sneak around as "a person who own a metal object" than "someone with all these glowy marbles," or "that dude with an aura of bright colors, seriously what is that?" You could have an entire statue of Scadrian copper, carry it to your home on Sel without anyone having reason to suspect it's anything other than a statue, then grind it up into a literal lifetime's supply of smoking.

[Cracknut he/him]

First, AoL era Scadrial doesn't have mists every night, and mists only appear at night. So that's a pretty big handicap. Second, you're assuming that the mists are available for access by anybody, when this doesn't hold up to anything that's happened in the books. Pre-AoL, they were controlled by the remnant of Leras, and then by Kelsier for a little bit, and then Vin. During AoL, it's reasonable to assume that Sazed has control over the mists and isn't likely to just let anyone start leaching off them, particularly since his Investiture on Scadrial manifests in ways that aren't -directly- powered by the mists. Yes, they act as an aid, but no one says "Oops, can't use my pewter, no mists around".

 

Second, Darnam's right that it doesn't seem like Brandon's terribly sure which way he wants to go on letting other worlds metals work for Allomancy, but regardless... a bag of metal dust is probably going to be lighter than a bag of spheres. Surgebinding is pretty powerful, it would make sense to me that the limitation of it is that you have a very finite amount of Stormlight you can work with at a time... unless you're facing an army with gemstones in their beards.

Point isn't whether you can draw investiture from mists or not. It is possible to fuel one magic system with another source of investiture. Allomancer could use Breath/Stormlight/etc or some product of those we don't know yet, but if he knew how to do it, he wouldn't need to take metal with him. Same applies to KR. They could fuel their abilities without Stormlight if they knew how to. Point is that they CAN draw investiture on any planet and they don't need to walk around with all those shiny spheres. Fact that we don't know HOW would they do it and whether they would draw investiture from mists or metal or something entirely else doesn't affects "balance" of Cosmere.

 

A sword, a pair of glasses, a belt-buckle, utensils, a pocketwatch... you can carry a TON of metal on your person without raising eyebrows. Not all of it is "I can swallow it in a heartbeat" variety, but the fact is that if you're trying to stay under the radar (which is the best advantage any worldhopper has), It's a lot easier to sneak around as "a person who own a metal object" than "someone with all these glowy marbles," or "that dude with an aura of bright colors, seriously what is that?" You could have an entire statue of Scadrian copper, carry it to your home on Sel without anyone having reason to suspect it's anything other than a statue, then grind it up into a literal lifetime's supply of smoking.

On the other hand beautiful shining gems that can't be found anywhere on Nalthis could buy thousands of Breaths

Edited January 14, 2014 by 213

[Swimmingly he/him]

Are you assuming that a Lurcher can burn Nalthian iron? Cuz that's a big point of contention that keeps getting RAFO'd.

However, a few pounds of iron would keep you going for a while - Gems lose Stormlight on their own, the Dor exists only on Sel, and Breaths aren't as combat-oriented. A feruchemist would be set for life by definition.

[Vortaan he/him]

A sword, a pair of glasses, a belt-buckle, utensils, a pocketwatch... you can carry a TON of metal on your person without raising eyebrows. Not all of it is "I can swallow it in a heartbeat" variety, but the fact is that if you're trying to stay under the radar (which is the best advantage any worldhopper has), It's a lot easier to sneak around as "a person who own a metal object" than "someone with all these glowy marbles," or "that dude with an aura of bright colors, seriously what is that?" You could have an entire statue of Scadrian copper, carry it to your home on Sel without anyone having reason to suspect it's anything other than a statue, then grind it up into a literal lifetime's supply of smoking.

 

It's weird to be on the same side of the discussion with Darnam... but yeah, another excellent point. Actually, subsequent point: Allomancy and Feruchemy are the only magic we've seen besides Forging with no visual cue that you're using it. You glow with Surgebinding, Elantrans are Elantrans, Hemalurgy you have big damnation spikes, and Awakening has the color bubble of sunshine. Granted these are all not terribly hard to hide, but still... not having to gives our hypothetical Misting worldhopper another advantage over his peers.

[Swimmingly he/him]

Even forgery has the raised seals

[Vortaan he/him]

Even forgery has the raised seals

 

Yeah, but that's really easy to hide, as opposed to the others.

[Swimmingly he/him]

Yeah, but that's really easy to hide, as opposed to the others.

Harder than the Elantrianess. A practising Elantrian can whip up an illusion, whereas Forgery always leaves the seal

[Oudeis he/him]

Harder than the Elantrianess. A practising Elantrian can whip up an illusion, whereas Forgery always leaves the seal

 

I'd suspect it'd be hard, if not impossible, to disguise the glowyness as you draw the aons, however. Meantime there's not necessarily any apparent signature to Soothing someone, or for that matter, there's a lot of time even a coinshot can get away with some subtle uses of his power. And unless I'm forgetting something, bronze is the only way to find Investiture, period. For several reasons, I'd suspect it could even find an Elantrian beneath a disguise.

[digitalbusker he/him]

...you can carry a TON of metal on your person....

Disclaimer: Do not attempt this.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I'd suspect it'd be hard, if not impossible, to disguise the glowyness as you draw the aons, however. Meantime there's not necessarily any apparent signature to Soothing someone, or for that matter, there's a lot of time even a coinshot can get away with some subtle uses of his power. And unless I'm forgetting something, bronze is the only way to find Investiture, period. For several reasons, I'd suspect it could even find an Elantrian beneath a disguise.

Basically, Mistborn can find anything magical, Feruchemists can do their thing eternally anywhere, and hemalurgy can steal anything anywhere. While other systems are less limited in practical effects, Scadrial's cache of barely explored metamagic is enormous

[Swimmingly he/him]

Disclaimer: Do not attempt this.

Pewter compounding. This makes you into the Hulk.

[Vortaan he/him]

Harder than the Elantrianess. A practising Elantrian can whip up an illusion, whereas Forgery always leaves the seal

 

We're talking across Shardworlds, remember? Off Sel I doubt you can get the power for an illusion.

[Swimmingly he/him]

We're talking across Shardworlds, remember? Off Sel I doubt you can get the power for an illusion.

I guess you could wear a lot of makeup then.

[Oudeis he/him]

We're talking across Shardworlds, remember? Off Sel I doubt you can get the power for an illusion.

 

Meh, if he could craft multiple illusions with the minimal power provided before he fixed Rao, it's possible that it will require little enough Dor that he might be able to accomplish it.

 

 

Basically, Mistborn can find anything magical, Feruchemists can do their thing eternally anywhere, and hemalurgy can steal anything anywhere. While other systems are less limited in practical effects, Scadrial's cache of barely explored metamagic is enormous

 

Yeeeees. I'm personally certain that of the four Shardworlds we've seen, the metallic arts (and especially allomancy) have by far the most fascinating crossmere applications.

[Swimmingly he/him]

Meh, if he could craft multiple illusions with the minimal power provided before he fixed Rao, it's possible that it will require little enough Dor that he might be able to accomplish it.

Yeeeees. I'm personally certain that of the four Shardworlds we've seen, the metallic arts (and especially allomancy) have by far the most fascinating crossmere applications.

Hemalurgy is much more interesting in my opinion. Most likely, its the only way a Feruchemical nicrosil ferring could store interesting energies. Like the Dor, for instance. Think on that.

[DocHoliday he/him]

@213 fuel for Allowmancy is completely different than foci for it. You can have all the gasoline in the world, but if you don't have a gas tank for it, your car is going nowhere.

"Where you going? Nowhere. That's right, where you going? Absolutely. ####ing. Nowhere." Boondock Saints

[Youngy he/him]

Thus an Allowmancer on Roshar needs metals, not Stormlight, to burn.

I don't know if I agree with this statement completely.

If we consider Stormlight as the gaseous form of a Shard's power the same way the Mists (white and black) are the gaseous form of Preservation and Ruin's power respectively - as long as a Misting could find a way to take in the Stormlight (this we have no idea about the specifics of - or even if it is possible), I do believe it could be used to fuel Allomancy. 

[Asha'man Logain]

I'm pretty sure that the ability your closeness to Preservation gives you is the ability to burn a metal. Not to access a power, not to use investiture, but to burn. What metal you can burn determines the effect you can get.

 

Brandon has said that much like the way Aons' shape determine the outcome, Allomancy works in much the same way. The shape of the molecules  determines the power that comes out. The ability to 'burn' is the magic power. The metal just filters the power of creation into whatever it's shape determines. It would not matter, therefore, which planet the metals come from. The metals do not give the power, their shape determines which power is released, and assuming that all the plaents in the galaxy have the same periodic table, any metal will work from anyworld.

 

However if you know how, or did the juryrigging mentioned I'm sure you could burn the stormlight in the same way vin could burn the mists.

[Cheeky-eyes she/her]

 

 

Brandon has said that much like the way Aons' shape determine the outcome, Allomancy works in much the same way. The shape of the molecules  determines the power that comes out.

 

This I agree with. Chemically speaking it shouldn't matter where the metals came from they should have the same atomic structure wherever one is. The only reason I could see this not working if the metals on Scadrial were changed slightly by Preservation to make them burnable. Since shape is important the pure metals like tin should be the same, and the alloys should have the same ratio of metals as well. Unless of course there was intervention on the Shards behalf. 

 

If that's the case then taking your own metals with you before you Worldhop would be pretty easy to do, as mentioned previously you don't use much at a time. And if you were leaving your world for whatever reason I imagine you would take metals with you anyway, just in case. A problem with this though would be running out over time, bring us back to the can-other-worlds-metals-work-for-Allomancy-too question. 

[Dahak he/him]

I don't remember where I've read it but I believe Brandon stated that only Scadrian metal can be burned by Allomancers.

 

He did say Soulcast Iron would work, though soul casting the right alloy of Steel would be more difficult/