Was the whole "not feeling pain" thing Miles's perk?

[Oversleep]

256 different perks? Even Brandon is not that crazy. I think he'll go with something like half this, half this - "this allomantic metal gives you X and this feruchemical metal gives you Y". Of course, this effects have to mesh somehow since it has to be one ability.

[natc]

256 is still lower than what variations hemalurgy or AonDor are capable of by themselves.

[Oversleep]

Well, for every four new alloys one of them steals Allomantic abilities tied to these metals and another one steals Feruchemical abilities tied to these metals. Another one or two would steal some human attribute.

At least on Scadrial...

And AonDor isn't really that codified. It's more like - "this Aon means X, it does something related to X". But Three Metallic Arts are heavily systematized - there can be only that much alloys (for example, take lerasium and base metals - there can be only 16 lerasium alloys of base metals, no more, no less. You can read about that in my Three Metallic Arts theory, link in my sign). And each of them has to do something specific and they have to be grouped. It gets worse (or better) in Allomancy with Pushing/Pulling Interior/Exterior division.

[natc]

I'm just saying it's not exactly crazy for him to have the system create 256 perks if he's had other systems where an ink stamp can do anything from making paintings appear on the wall or fixing leaks to false memories and what basically amounts to programming a human-imitating AI from scratch.

Then we have hemalurgy, where with enough knowledge of the art and things to murder you can basically genetically engineer nearly anything into existence.

The guy doesn't seem to mind magic systems being too complex for one's sanity. He might not end up explaining the limits of it to every small possibility, but he sets up many things to be capable of way too much quite frequently . . .

[Edgedancer he/him]

I'm just saying it's not exactly crazy for him to have the system create 256 perks if he's had other systems where an ink stamp can do anything from making paintings appear on the wall or fixing leaks to false memories and what basically amounts to programming a human-imitating AI from scratch.

Then we have hemalurgy, where with enough knowledge of the art and things to murder you can basically genetically engineer nearly anything into existence.

The guy doesn't seem to mind magic systems being too complex for one's sanity. He might not end up explaining the limits of it to every small possibility, but he sets up many things to be capable of way too much quite frequently . . .

The thing is that while those systems are complex he doesn't actually have to sit down and create every single possibilty on symbols that could be drawn. Similairly with Hemalurgy he only needs the basic 16 attributes and bind points and then make up whatever constructs as the plot demands it but the Twinborn perks are a rigid system of massive datapoints that can't just be glossed over/handwaved like that.

[DeadFencer]

Going back to the original topic, I interpreted it as Miles healing so quickly that his pain nerves either didn't fire or were stopped from firing.

[kroen]

Going back to the original topic, I interpreted it as Miles healing so quickly that his pain nerves either didn't fire or were stopped from firing.

You know, I'm not sure. Even when Miles was shot during his excecution, he didn't seem to feel any pain even though his gold reserves were getting very low and his wounds healed more slowly. And even when his reserves were completely tapped out, it wasn't noted that he felt any pain whatsoever.

Edited January 19, 2016 by kroen

[mattig89ch he/him]

Thats a good point.  I just read that scene, and it never said a grimace of pain showed on him.

 

I don't know anything about nerve endings, or pain receptors, but could it be his sense of pain was dulled due to years and years of feeling similar pain over and over?

[kroen]

Thats a good point.  I just read that scene, and it never said a grimace of pain showed on him.

 

I don't know anything about nerve endings, or pain receptors, but could it be his sense of pain was dulled due to years and years of feeling similar pain over and over?

You mean to say that some of his nerves didn't heal? seems odd when everything else did.

[natc]

He's not saying that. Once you get used to some things you stop noticing them, it happens often . . .

. . . but not with pain to any significant degree I'm rusting sure.

[Pathfinder]

You know, I'm not sure. Even when Miles was shot during his excecution, he didn't seem to feel any pain even though his gold reserves were getting very low and his wounds healed more slowly. And even when his reserves were completely tapped out, it wasn't noted that he felt any pain whatsoever.

Not arguing either way, but in that example it was not from Miles's POV, so we cannot know whether he felt pain or not. 

[icy1155]

You mean to say that some of his nerves didn't heal? seems odd when everything else did.

 

Makes perfect sense if he thought the ability to heal pain receptors would get damaged over time.  Brandon has said a few times that healing has to do with what a person thinks should be healed. 

 

Stormlight Archive Spoiler

This is why Kaladin's slave brand wasn't healed when he takes in stormlight, he thinks that the brand belongs

[NovaSeeker he/him]

I was under the impression that Miles was a Compounded-Gold Savant. If Wayne was suddenly spiked with the ability to burn gold, and started burning compounded gold, I don't believe he would show the same level of regenerative capacity as Miles does. I think at first, a shotgun blast to the face might still kill him.

 

I think this is the case because it's been stated that Savants change their physiological makeup. The chapter epigraphs from Hero of Ages explicitly say savants become somewhat inhuman. I think Miles was definitely inhuman to the point where his ludicrous healing capacity would continue to function even if he was beheaded (tanget: I imagine the head would die and the body would grow a new head with an exact replica of his neural pathways and memories, because I believe the healing effect comes from burning the metal in his stomach, which would continue to burn without any mental input because his inhuman body itself knows to keep burning the gold.) 

Edited February 5, 2016 by NovaSeeker

[Weltall]

You might want to read Bands of Mourning, it gives an even better idea of what non-compounding feruchemical healing can do.

 

As for being a Savant, I can't see that it would make a difference either way. You aren't getting the healing from burning gold allomantically, you're getting it from tapping it feruchemically. You might be able to get more health from compounding if you're a Savant than otherwise (maybe) but it wouldn't affect what you have to do in order to make use of that stored health.

[natc]

What non-compounded gold can do . . . no real example necessary, since every part of the process tells you that the ability is normal feruchemical gold. That's what's healing Miles constantly. Any gold ferring with enough health can do the same. The difference is that it's much easier for a gold compounder to do this by storing the health from their burned goldminds than it is for a ferring to store his own health.

Bottom line being any ferring can heal as much as they want as fast as they want as long as their stores allow and that they aren't already dead. Not sure where the misconception of power levels comes from; lacking a true upper limit to the rate of power usage is one of the most widely acknowledged advantages feruchemy has over allomancy.

Edited February 6, 2016 by natc

[jasenerd]

My point is that he can become a Feruchemic Savant, because of the amount of Investiture he holds over a large period of time. That's exactly what happened to spook/March/Kelsier that made them savants. My point is that the not feeling of pain isn't his twinborn perk, rather being a side effect of Savantism into Feruchemic Gold(which happens to act a lot like a pewter savant.)

[kroen]

Well we've never heard of a feruchemical savant before so...

[Weltall]

Yeah, we have absolutely no evidence that there is such a thing as a feruchemical equivalent of Savants.

 

What non-compounded gold can do . . . no real example necessary, since every part of the process tells you that the ability is normal feruchemical gold.

 

I could have phrased that to be clearer but yeah, the advantage of compounding is that it makes it easier to do really impressive things, not that it lets you do things that you couldn't without compounding provided you had enough of the attribute stored up. Well, aside from storing age to extend your lifespan where you do need compounding..

[jasenerd]

Savantism is explained as a consequence of holding investiture over a long period of time, similar to how holding Ruin changed Ati. Is their any evidence that this is not the case? Otherwise the WoB that all investiture will change it's holder over a period of time would indicate that you can become a Feruchemic Savant by constantly tapping a metal mind over a long period of time.

 

The only confirmed ferring to have done that is Miles, and he does show an ability that can't be explained by just being a Ferring or Misting. So the only two options is that the Twinborn perk of Gold and Gold is not feeling pain(Something that I don't think follows any logic) or that by always tapping gold, Miles' body chanced to not feel pain by always holding investiture(I.E Savantism).

 

If you assert that you can't become a Feruchemic Savant, then I have to ask for some evidence other than "Well we haven't seen a Feruchemic Savant before", because that is explained with very few Feruchemist having enough of a charge in any individual metal mind to change their body by holding that investiture.

 

Edit: Oh, that was a lot more confrontational than I meant it to be. Sorry

Edited February 7, 2016 by jasenerd

[Kaymyth she/her]

The thing that Miles does that normal Bloodmakers can't is he keeps the healing going constantly.  He's never not tapping/burning for healing, so he's got a never-ending influx of power.  The reason he can do things like heal from a shotgun blast to the head is because his body is already healing.

 

For Wayne, healing from an injury takes a certain set of steps.

1 - Oh, ow, I'm hurt!

2 - Turn on healing.

3 - Yay, all better now!

The biggest reason he's unlikely survive a shot to the head is because he wouldn't have the chance to consciously start the healing process before he was dead.

 

Miles just sort of...skips all that thinking nonsense and heals instinctively.

[NovaSeeker he/him]

Forgive me if my assumptions are wrong, but I don't think you can become a Ferruchemical savant, because it is a power-neutral magic system. You're never getting more out of it than you put in. Savantism only works with Allomancy (or Hemalurgically granted Allomancy) because Allomancy is a net-positive magic, where you are constantly pulling on the power of a Shard while burning metals and "overdosing" on that power. Ferruchemical power comes from you, not a Shard, so you can't "overdose" on it, and it can't alter you into a Savant.

 

The reason why I say that Miles could get his no-pain from being a Compounding Savant is, and correct me if I am wrong here as well, he is not tapping a goldmind for healing. He is storing up healing in a goldmind, then swallowing and burning that goldmind as if it was a brand new allomantic metal. That was my assumption of how Compounding works. By burning (NOT tapping) the ferruchemical charge in the goldmind, he is drawing power from a Shard instead of just the goldmind and experiencing an exponentially increased capacity for healing, orders of magnitude greater than merely tapping a goldmind would give. So much so, in fact, that he can fill up other goldminds while STILL being ridiculously regenerative (hence, an infinite feedback loop of healing ability, i.e. compounding.)

 

We know that the effects of Savantism depends on the kind of metal you're burning. Coinshot savants like Wax gain increased finesse and ability with pushing metals. Tineye savants like Spook deaden the sensitivity of pretty much every nerve ending in their body while simultaneously increasing the enhancement gained from burning tin (Which is why he can sense better than any other Tineye, but becomes blind, deaf, and basically numb to all sensation when turning it off). Pewterarm savants are said to no longer recognize when they are physically exhausted or feel pain. The way Savantism changes you physically directly corresponds, somehow, to the kind of allomantic effect you are "overdosing" yourself on.

 

Therefore, for someone who burns compounded gold constantly the way Miles does, it's only logical to assume that the Investiture being channeled through him at such a constant rate would alter his body physiologically in-line with the effects the Investiture is creating in his body, just like it does for the regular Allomantic metals. He's allomantically overdosing on ferruchemically charged gold.

[natc]

I don't believe anyone just burns metalminds constantly . . . what a waste of attribute.

[NovaSeeker he/him]

It's not really a waste..... at least, not the way I thought Compounding works.

 

Let me see if I can spell out how I think Compounding works more clearly with numbers.

 

Okay, so with normal goldminds, you can make yourself 50% less healthy to store up 50% health in the goldmind. We don't really have a unit of measurement for ferruchemical charges, but just lets define "a day of 50% filling" as 1. So after ten days of filling, you have 10 units of healing.

 

You can tap the 10 units of healing in any proportion you want. Be double healthy for 5 days (spending 2 charge a day), spend 5 charges in a single day to get over a really bad case of food poisoning, or oh crap, spend all 10 at once to heal a gunshot wound.

 

But, you're not just a bloodmaker. You're a Compounder. Take that goldmind, and swallow it. Now you have 10 charges in your stomach. You can tap or burn it. Burning it, however, gives you a burst of 10 units for every 1 you stored. Now you have 100 charges. You need to heal from five gunshots? You still have 50 charges left. Lets assume you had 5 other goldminds that were not in your stomach during the next ten days, and you were filling them all at the same time that you were burning Compounded gold. That's 10 units per each of those five goldminds at the end of the ten days, while you were healing from five gunshot wounds, and perfectly healthy (you're filling the five goldminds directly from the charges you gained from burning the first one, not from making your actual health weaker).

 

Now at the end of the those ten days, you have 5 fully charged goldminds. Swallow them.

 

You now have 500 charges.

 

Another ten days later, if you didn't get injured, you'd fill 50 goldminds.

 

Swallow them.

 

5,000 charges.

 

That's not a waste of an attribute.

 

(There's even a comment Wax makes to Miles about him always needing more gold, cause he's constantly consuming it.)

Edited February 8, 2016 by NovaSeeker

[natc]

You said constantly though. Burning a lot and storing it is how it generally works, but savantism requires a nonstop flare, which is wholly redundant for a feruchemist. He only needs gold to restore his charges, he doesn't need to flare it for extended periods. He'd stop at a suitably absurd number and just tap for a while.

I'm just picking at your original phrasing is all. He would not burn compounded gold constantly. No lawman has enough cash to flare gold for presumably decades.

[NovaSeeker he/him]

Aaah, okay. I wasn't sure I was stating myself correctly, apologies for over-explaining.

 

I'm not sure if that's the case though. I thought he was pretty much always burning and filling 24/7, which was why Wax even made the comment about his insatiable need for gold. (It sounded like something significant, not just an offhand comment about how much an average lawman earns)