A war between Scadrial (era 2) and Roshar

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Coinshots and Lurchers can't use Duralumin though. They'd need Mistborn for that, which don't exist in current Scadrial.

jW

But a Nicrosil Misting does the same thing as Duralumin but for someone else.

 

EDIT: admittedly, on the Elendel Basin bit of Scadrial. Nicrosil seems at least rare. But I'm sure they'd aim to make more of it in a war effort

Edited April 4, 2016 by IndigoAjah

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Lol wish there was a place you could just go and type a word in, and every WoB with that word in it would pop up. There is the interview database, but that is far far from comprehensive. 

 

Lol again, it is why I said close. Like IndigoAjah said, I feel like people are overestimating shardplate, and underestimating pewter. Doesn't mean they are equal, but also doesn't mean they are so massively far apart. 

 

I just had another scene pop in to my mind - Dalinar (or maybe Adolin) kicks, with ease, a Parshendi corpse into a group Parshendi so hard it knocks the Parshendi down. We know warform Parshendi are dense and have heavy, all-organic, possibly gluten free, armor on. Can you similarly imagine a thug, even flaring pewter, having enough strength to kick, with ease, an armored corpse so hard it knocks down a group of charging warriors?

 

I certainly agree that pewter and Shardplate are not massively far apart but I do think they are relatively significantly far apart. Pewter might give you more dexterity but shardplate is way ahead in terms of strength (in my personal opinion).

 

I will try to remember this question for the next book I order or the next signing I go to. I would love to hear Brandon's take on this.

[Pathfinder]

Coinshots and Lurchers can't use Duralumin though. They'd need Mistborn for that, which don't exist in current Scadrial.

jW

Which is why I said groups of two, one coinshot or lurcher, one nicroburst, because as IndigoAjah pointed out, the nicroburst acts as duralumin for the coinshot or lurcher. 

 

I just had another scene pop in to my mind - Dalinar (or maybe Adolin) kicks, with ease, a Parshendi corpse into a group Parshendi so hard it knocks the Parshendi down. We know warform Parshendi are dense and have heavy, all-organic, possibly gluten free, armor on. Can you similarly imagine a thug, even flaring pewter, having enough strength to kick, with ease, an armored corpse so hard it knocks down a group of charging warriors?

 

I certainly agree that pewter and Shardplate are not massively far apart but I do think they are relatively significantly far apart. Pewter might give you more dexterity but shardplate is way ahead in terms of strength (in my personal opinion).

 

I will try to remember this question for the next book I order or the next signing I go to. I would love to hear Brandon's take on this.

I could have sworn Vin did something similar in the court scene when Straff's assassins go for Elend, but I will need to check. Give me like a half an hour or so to handle some things, and I will do a word search in my kindle. 

[CaptainRyan he/him]

I could have sworn Vin did something similar in the court scene when Straff's assassins go for Elend, but I will need to check. Give me like a half an hour or so to handle some things, and I will do a word search in my kindle. 

 

Take your time. Honestly, the more time in-between posts on this thread the more work I get done!   I am interested in seeing what you find though so don't take toooo long haha

[Oversleep]

I remember Renarin in Shardplate jumping off the roof and hitting ground with head down without any injury or even being stunned.

Kelsier burning pewter was able to endure hits to arm and side, but he felt a lot of pain and later remarked that without burning pewter he would have fainted from pain long ago.

That's quite a difference.

Does somebody remember anything about the weight they can lift?

BTW, Dalinar's warhammer was so heavy that two men barely could lift it. And he could wield it with one hand. There's a huge difference.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Yeah, but that is nothing to do with strength, toughness, speed or ANYTHING that is an attribute.

 

Renarin was wearing armour. That's what armour is meant to do. Magic shiny armour but its protective features are separate, for the most part, to its attribute enhancing features

[jasenerd]

Does anyone have a comparison between feruchemic gold and stormlight healing? Mostly on which one is more efficient with raw investiture?

[IndigoAjah he/him]

No but gut instinct says Stormlight vs normal Gold, but obviously Compounding > Stormlight

[jasenerd]

I should specify, I was specifically asking on how efficient each form of healing was across the three realms. I.e  is Gold better at healing Spiritual damage to Stormlight being better at physical? 

 

That and for any given amount of investiture in, how much healing does the two grant? I.E Assuming equal amounts of investiture, a Radiant would heal more than a ferring.

[A Windspren he/him]

I think you're overestimating the power of Pewterarms. Mistings in Era 2 are much less powerful than Era 1 Mistings, and even if they were as powerful, what would they do against Shardplate? A sword wouldn't do much even if they put all of their strength behind it, because it would either be chopped in half or shatter against the armor.

 

 

Roshar could do a similar thing with fabrials. A squad dedicated to protecting a Shardbearer would have a Repeller fabrial to push away any projectiles that were fired at the Shardbearer, one of those fabrials that can drain/add Stormlight (I forget what they're called, but Hatham used them to make his rings glow only faintly) could be used to refill Shardplate if it gets drained, and a team of archers with glass arrows would kill any Mistings before they could get close to the Shardbearer. Mistings would be detected using Warner fabrials.

 

I have seen mention of repeller fabrials before. The only such fabrial I could recall was regarding water to keep the bows dry and even then it was almost overwhelmed by the rain. If they had ones that were that strong, why wasn't that made a priority in development for when the Alethi stormed the parshendi with their bridges? Countless lives could have been saved from the use of those. So to leap from wicking away water to stopping bullets I think is a rather big jump. Then assuming you could make fabrials that strong, the amount of stormlight needed to turn aside bullets enough to not hit the target is massive as well as these fabrials were stationary. How would they follow/accompany a charging shardbearer without the fabrial bearer getting killed, or dropped itself? Finally the alarm fabrial shown in the book has a short range. It is a far cry from radar. 

 

 

The reason the water repelling (it was actually an attractor, but meh) fabrial was so weak was because it was using gems that barely had any Stormlight in them, as it was in the middle of the Weeping. I doubt that the fabrials would take more Stormlight than Shardplate, so one could even be mounted inside Shardplate itself. The portability of them is not an issue, as they could fit on a small tripod. The Warning fabrial shown was a small version, and it could give alerts for people far enough away that it took a while for them to be seen, even though they were on horses.

In any case, the Shardbearer would likely kill the Shardkillers before they even got close to him.

 

Not if the shardbearer was continually disarmed and pewter is very close to the increase shardplate provides

 

​How would they be continuously disarmed? We have a WoB that says that you could only push on Shards with duralumin/nicrosil, and even then it would only push on it a little. Plus, the enhanced strength of Shardplate would allow the Shardbearer to easily keep hold of his weapon, making the Coinshot fly backwards with the force of his own Push. Even if the Coinshot could push away the Blade, he would have to continuously drink metals as they were drained.

 

If Mistings were to try and push on Shardblades, even with a nicrosil boost, it would only affect the Shardblade a tiny bit, and the strength of Shardplate would help the Shardbearer keep his grip on it. Also, the Sharkillers would have to refill on metals in the middle of a battle.

 

You know it would only affect it a tiny bit for a fact? The WoB said in order to push on it you could use duralumin. I took that as not nudge it, not make it twitch, or shake, but to push on it. But I admit in that case that is my own interpretation but would like to point out there is no evidence backing up your interpretation either. 

 

Yeah, let me find that WoB

​---

Okay, so it says that duralumin AND a strong Push might do it. Since Era 2 Mistings are much weaker than Era 1 ones, I take this to mean that the Push would be very weak

 

 

As a response to the earlier discussion about whether or not Rosharans could reverse-engineer guns and if Scadrians could make fabrials: It's easy to take apart a gun and see how it works. It would probably take a few months for Navani to have a working gun ready. Fabrials are a different story. If you take apart a fabrial, you get a bunch of metal wire and a glowing gemstone. The Scadrians would have no idea how to build more, as the inner workings of fabrials are barely known even to artifabrians.

 

Given that we do not know how the current Rosharians were able to figure out how to get a soulcaster to work, when they have no clue how to make one themselves, makes this point be unable to be approached from either angle. So cannot argue that Scadrial could or could not figure out making them when Rosharians themselves could not figure it out either. 

 

I'm not talking about Soulcasters, I'm talking about modern fabrials.

 

If someone from Scadrial were to defect to the Roshar side, they would likely be a normal citizen or soldier. Everyone on Scadrial could tell you the basic principal of how guns work, but if a Rosharan were to defect, they would likely be a slave or darkeye. The only ones who know how fabrials work are ardents and artifabrians, and there's not many slaves or unhappy darkeyes among those. It's far more likely that Roshar would develop guns before Scadrial develops fabrials.

 

So ever Scadrialian is a gunsmith? I am born on earth, but I could not assemble you a gun nor mix gunpowder for you and we are even more advanced than Scadrial. So why would any Scadrialian on the street know how to make a gun? Sure a soldier could use a gun, clean a gun, and maintain it, but producing them? Nope. Now continuing on your point. A defecting Rosharian could be welcomed into Scadrialian society. Conversly a defecting Scadrialian who happens to have deep brown eyes would never hold a high position in Alethi hierarchy. Sounds like it is more appealing to jump to Scadrial's side to me. 

 

​Anyone could tell you the basic principle of how guns work. When you have examples to look at, your work gets a lot easier. Some ardents were also darkeyed, and it seems that they are the ones that mainly work with fabrials.

 

 

There's also the fact that a Pewterarm would have to get in range of a 6-foot long Shardblade if they wanted to do more than make faces at the Shardbearer. If they tried using their own 6-foot swords, they would be immediately chopped in two by the Shardbearer.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Kevino36

[IndigoAjah he/him]

<p>Um, a sword would have quite a bit effect wielded by even a weaker Pewterarm. "Shardbows" and hammers are both used as effective anti-Shardplate weapons, and Szeth with Stormlight (that's his strength advantage as Shardblades are magically sharp not magically strong) smashes up Plate. What makes you think they have become <strong>that</strong> much weaker?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Another aside, I'm not sure you see how difficult it is to understand something like guns before your culture has come up with the necessary groundwork to get there. I doubt very much that they could "work out how guns work", tehy lack the understanding in several not just one area of science.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Also, darkeye ardents are likely kept working for the inherent racism in their system because a) they are focussed on serving their god and <img class="bbc_emoticon" src="http://www.17thshard.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.png"title="B)" /> they are blind to it due to its institutionalised and ingrained nature. This would not apply to Scadrians coming across, who if religious have their own god who is demonstrably more alive than Honor</p>

<p> </p>

<p>And as for getting within range, they'd hardly be the first enhanced fighters to get within Shardblade range. Shardblades are NOT particularly well designed for fighting humans and especially not smaller numbers of skilled ones.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Plus eventually the Shardkillers are going to get Shards</p>

Edited April 4, 2016 by IndigoAjah

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Um, a sword would have quite a bit effect wielded by even a weaker Pewterarm. "Shardbows" and hammers are both used as effective anti-Shardplate weapons, and Szeth with Stormlight (that's his strength advantage as Shardblades are magically sharp not magically strong) smashes up Plate. What makes you think they have become that much weaker?

 

This brings up an interesting (to me at least haha   ) point IndigoAjah. Would a normal person wielding a shardblade require the same number of hits to break a piece of shardplate as compared to the same person wielding a hammer? In other words, is there no advantage to hitting shardplate with a shardblade? 

 

My initial reaction was to think that shardblades would be more effective than a non-shard (or non-invested) weapon but, after thinking about it for a moment, I am not sure why that would be. Thoughts?

[Pathfinder]

Ok, so as I am a bit swamped with work, I do not have the time to type up the quotes, I will however leave the page number and book to the kindle edition so anyone who would like to, could reference what I am bringing up. Helps save me some time and my hands lol. So here we go.

 

page 15 Well of Ascension Vin is fighting a haze killer squad that has three thugs. One thug catches her in the ribs with a dueling cane and literally flings her across the street from that blow alone.

 

page 493 Well of Ascension, A coinshot starts to fly away, and Vin smacks him out of midair with a dueling cane throwing him to the side. So with pewter she literally swats another person out of mid air like a fly, changing the direction he is going

 

page 631 Well of Ascension, Zane kicks oreseur wolf hound form tumbling across the floor. 

 

page 734 Well of Ascension, Vin flares pewter and punches a koloss (5 feet taller than her, so roughly 10 ft tall), in the face cracking the skull. No duralumin

 

Now for the Way of Kings portion

page 379 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks the parshendi corpse sending it tumbling 30 ft

 

page 780 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks a parshendi in the chest, sending him 20 ft

 

So both groups seem to be able to throw people around pretty good. Just it wasn't brought up as much in mistborn, because the main character was a mistborn, who could use anchors to throw enemies farther than 30 feet with just pushes and pulls. Check the battle with Cett. Only twice or so does Vin use a duralumin push. Otherwise its normal pushes and pulls decimating 50 soldiers. and that was only on one floor. So yes shardbearers sweep their sword and take out tons of parshendi, but mistings when grouped right and working together can hold their own decently too 

[Pathfinder]

I think you're overestimating the power of Pewterarms. Mistings in Era 2 are much less powerful than Era 1 Mistings, and even if they were as powerful, what would they do against Shardplate? A sword wouldn't do much even if they put all of their strength behind it, because it would either be chopped in half or shatter against the armor.

double post to reply to this since I was typing another reply. I already commented on this. A nicriburst coinshot combo would disarm the shardbearer everytime while a pewter thug came up to fight him to distract him while a leecher drained the shardplate to a oversized paperweight. 

[CaptainRyan he/him]

Thanks a ton Pathfinder for pulling the relevant quotes! That is awesome of you.

 

 

 

- - - - - Pathfinder's post plus my responses (in bold) - - - - - 

 

page 15 Well of Ascension Vin is fighting a haze killer squad that has three thugs. One thug catches her in the ribs with a dueling cane and literally flings her across the street from that blow alone.

 

Vin is tiny slip of a girl and, during a fight, would naturally (especially while burning pewter) move with the direction of the hit to reduce the impact; even when caught entirely by surprise the body would probably try to "go with the flow".

 

page 493 Well of Ascension, A coinshot starts to fly away, and Vin smacks him out of midair with a dueling cane throwing him to the side. So with pewter she literally swats another person out of mid air like a fly, changing the direction he is going

 

Changing the direction of something in motion is much easier than changing moving that is at a "dead" stop. (See what I did there... dead stop haha). 

 

page 631 Well of Ascension, Zane kicks oreseur wolf hound form tumbling across the floor. 

 

This is, to me, one of the more compelling examples but even a large wolfhound probably does not weigh as much as a warform Parshendi. Also, see the previous about rolling with the punches.

 

page 734 Well of Ascension, Vin flares pewter and punches a koloss (5 feet taller than her, so roughly 10 ft tall), in the face cracking the skull. No duralumin

 

An impressive feat of strength, for sure, but in the realm of shardplate I would label it as unremarkable at best.

 

Now for the Way of Kings portion

page 379 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks the parshendi corpse sending it tumbling 30 ft

 

Adding the full quote: "Then [Dalinar] kicked, tossing a corpse into the faces of the Parshendi nearby. A few more kicks sent corpses flying—a Plate-driven kick could easily send a body tumbling thirty feet—clearing the ground around him for better footing."

 

This is the money quote. As anyone who has been forced to carry an unconscious person can attest, moving dead weight (same joke, again!) is very, very different from moving a conscious person. In this case the Parshendi was dead, not unconscious, but that means a large, dense, heavy corpse is changed from being completely at "rest" (the jokes just don't stop!) to being launched into the air and into someone's face. Not only that but it is such an easy task for a shardbearer that they can do it, repeatedly, in the middle of intense combat. It seems like it is easier for a shardbearer to repeatedly kick corpses into the air than it would be for you or me to kick soccer balls that are lined up neatly in a row.

 

page 780 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks a parshendi in the chest, sending him 20 ft

 

- - - - - Pathfinder's post ends - - - - -

 

For some reason I did not like the way this looked in the quote box so I did this instead haha.

 

I really do think there is a clear advantage to strength in the shardplate department. That is not to say that pewter is "weak" or "useless" by any means but I think if you sat down a thug and a shardplate wearer and had them arm wrestle then the thug, even flaring, would lose without too much of a struggle.

 

That being said, pewter has plenty of its own advantages in terms of innately granting balance/dexterity (remember Renarin having to learn how to hold cups?), providing a healing bonus, increasing stamina (shardbearers get fatigued while fighting at a slower rate than normal people but they definitely wear out faster than a thug) etc. In pure, brute strength however I think the win is clearly in favor of shardplate (in my opinion of course).

Edited April 4, 2016 by CaptainRyan

[A Windspren he/him]

double post to reply to this since I was typing another reply. I already commented on this. A nicriburst coinshot combo would disarm the shardbearer everytime while a pewter thug came up to fight him to distract him while a leecher drained the shardplate to a oversized paperweight. 

And if the Shardbearer keeps a hold of his weapon, the Coinshot flies back into a wall and dies. The Nicroburst, Pewterarm and Leecher then get cut in half by a 6 ft long Shardblade.

[Oversleep]

Yeah, but that is nothing to do with strength, toughness, speed or ANYTHING that is an attribute.

Renarin was wearing armour. That's what armour is meant to do. Magic shiny armour but its protective features are separate, for the most part, to its attribute enhancing features

The thing is, simply wearing armor doesn't magically make you immune to anything... If you bash your head against a wall, wearing a helmet or not, you're gonna feel it. Armor doesn't protect against such damage. (Like you see with Iron Man being thrown through a tree, breaking the tree, Tony is fine. That's not how it works.)

Now, Shardplate grant enhancements. Renarin should have snapped his neack, cracked his skull or at least have concussion.

double post to reply to this since I was typing another reply. I already commented on this. A nicriburst coinshot combo would disarm the shardbearer everytime while a pewter thug came up to fight him to distract him while a leecher drained the shardplate to a oversized paperweight. 

Yeah, that's because we totally know whether Leeching work on Radiants, infused gems... and even if it did, we would still don't know whether it would work on Shardplate.

And for the nicroburst coinshot combo, that's works like once, because after that you need to replenish metals. And both Coinshot and Nicro are sent flying away while Shardbearer has only his Blade knocked away, which he can resummon.

And of course Shardbearer is way more durable than a Thug - remember how high were the rocks Sharbearers can jump off?

One punch to the face from a Shardbearer and Szeth is half dead (so imagine what would it do to a Thug), while Shardplate can withstand multiple hits made by Shardbearers wielding warhammers (and mind those warhammers are made for Shardbearers specifically - not your regular warhammers).

Edited April 4, 2016 by Oversleep

[CaptainRyan he/him]

double post to reply to this since I was typing another reply. I already commented on this. A nicriburst coinshot combo would disarm the shardbearer everytime while a pewter thug came up to fight him to distract him while a leecher drained the shardplate to a oversized paperweight. 

 

And if the Shardbearer keeps a hold of his weapon, the Coinshot flies back into a wall and dies. The Nicroburst, Pewterarm and Leecher then get cut in half by a 6 ft long Shardblade.

 

Oooo, I think this might be a good point. How does the Coinshot compensate for the massive force that would be inflicted on their body by a nicro-burst push? Vin needed to burn pewter when doing a steel + duralumin push.

 

 

edit: Poor Pathfinder! I am sorry it seems like we are all ganging up on you! I hope you know my questions come from a love of all things Brandon Sanderson (minus Calamity - I did not enjoy that book) and that I am not just trying to be difficult!

Edited April 4, 2016 by CaptainRyan

[IndigoAjah he/him]

The coinshot would probably die if they were pushing back on something behind them, to be fair

[CaptainRyan he/him]

The coinshot would probably die if they were pushing back on something behind them, to be fair

 

Yeah, probably. If the push on something behind them while nicro-pushing on a shardblade then they crush themselves and die. If they just do a nicro-push on a shardblade then they fly backwards at a rapid speed and die.

 

Maybe if they both pushed against the blade and then immediately pushed down they could redirect themselves up and then drop a coin/bullet after slowing down and do a controlled landing. The only problem here is that it would take a lot of time. They would be pushed back/up quite a distance, then they would need to land and then they would need to get back to their team to do another nicro-push. Maybe the squad could have 4+ coinshots so they could rotate who was being thrown backwards? Even then I feel like the massive amount of force their body would sustain would probably kill them immediately or at least leave them pretty incapacitated. Hmmm.

[A Windspren he/him]

Yes, and if they are being pushed backward that much, the effect on the Blade will be negligible

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Basically would be a lot better with a Crasher

[CaptainRyan he/him]

The coinshot would only be thrown backward if the shardbearer has a solid grip on their shardblade and is prepared for the push; otherwise I think the shock of having their shardblade suddenly pushed on by invisible forces would knock the blade right out of the shardbearers hands. Shardbearers are not used to having to grip their blades tightly because it is literally impossible for the blade to not cut through anything except shardstuff. After the first few times though I think the shardbearer would learn to grip the blade more tightly and then the coinshot is going to have a very, very bad day.

Edited April 4, 2016 by CaptainRyan

[Oversleep]

Basically would be a lot better with a Crasher

Well, everything is better with a Crasher

 

After the first few times though I think the shardbearer would learn to grip the blade more tightly and then the coinshot is going to have a very, very bad day.

After the first time this technique is used. After that all Sharbearers know to hold on their Shardblades tightly.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Oversleep

[jasenerd]

Blades aren't /that/ heavy, so the entire discussion should be focused on if the hold on the shardblades is strong enough to outweigh the coinshot. Either the force of the push will be mostly on the allomancer or on the blade. If it's mostly on the blade, then the effects on the coinshot can be ignored. If it's mostly on the allomancer, then it's relatively pointless.