Greater Cosmere Magic System Comparison

[Bigmikey357]

In the Greater Cosmere there are 4 major magic systems I'd like to discuss and make comparisons. My purpose is not to theorize who'd win a fight between magic users of different systems, more a comparison of the nature of the magics themselves. Note that I'm not including White Sand, Aether of Night or Shadows of Threnody. The first isn't fully published, the 2nd may not quite be canon yet and the third we don't know nearly enough to evaluate.

So, first the Planet and the systems.

Sel-AonDor/Dakhor

Scadrial-Metallic Arts

Nalthis-Awakening/Chromatics

Roshar-Surgebinding/Voidbinding

Granted this list is of course incomplete. As Brandon writes more books and opens up more of the Cosmere we will potentially see more planetary systems and more magic. Up to this point the 4 major magic systems of the Cosmere are the ones listed above.

Easiest Entry Point:

That title goes to Awakening. Everybody in the system is born with a seed of the magic in Breath. It's not terribly difficult to get more, at least in comparison to the other systems. And if one gets enough Breath you get the magic handbook. In fact the only restrictions come when you make it to Cognitive Shadow territory and even that's not onerous. 1 Breath a week, substituted for any raw Investiture if breath isn't available.

Most Mobile:

The Metallic Arts take the cake on this one. If your sDNA allows for metal manipulation then you can do it anywhere in the Cosmere. It's not location dependant like on the other Shard worlds because the doorway to the power is already incorporated into your spiritweb.

Most Investiture:

This is obviously Roshar. Two living Vessels and a shattered third are all in system. Raw Power circles the globe on a semi-regular basis. That raw power can be harnessed by practitioners of different magic systems with a simple hack. Probably a different hack for each system but it's probably not terribly difficult. Unlike say Scadrial where the hack into their system involves material that no longer exists (lerassium) or finding someone with the appropriate spiritweb and ripping a piece from their soul. On Roshar all you gotta do is stand out in a storm with a kite.

I'm sure there are more but that's all I could come up with for now.  I'm sure there are others. I tried to stay away from the more subjective comparisons like Most Useful or Most OP but feel free to explore.

 

 

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Most Mobile: The Metallic Arts take the cake on this one.

This depends on your criteria for mobile. If you mean easiest to get more fuel/power elsewhere, then it's the Metallic Arts for sure.
But if you mean most mobile in the sense of being able to be used anywhere, Awakening would tie with it because you can awaken practically anything, anywhere, with no hacking.

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

I tried to stay away from the more subjective comparisons like Most Useful or Most OP but feel free to explore.

But the subjective ones make for the best debate

[Wandering Investor]

Most flexible/capable:

AonDor and company, as proper knowledge of the systems can allow for very complex instructions.

 

[Bigmikey357]

Most Mobile for me means most easily refueled. That's Metallic Arts. On the other hand Roshar has the largest gas station. As far as anywhere usage, yeah you can Awaken anywhere in the Cosmere but Breath is a finite resource. And at this point there's only 2 places to fuel Awakening, Nalthis for regular unleaded and Roshar for a bio diesel substitute.

[Bigmikey357]

Haven't re-read Elantris in a couple years so it was kinda hard for me to come up with much. My inclination would be to say it's the most limited of the 4 from a Cosmere perspective. 1, heavily location-dependant, so much so that a landscape change broke the magic. 2. User limited. With Nalthis everyone can become a magic user, economics is the limiting factor. Roshar, attract 1 of 10 Spren and boom. Access granted. Scadrial has genetic factors that limit access so you may not be in that 'lucky' 1%. But Sel? Becoming a Reod seems to me like a random process with absolutely no oversight. No skills involved. Granted there may be a choice with the Dakhor or Soul Forgery but I'm not sure enough about either to compare them with the others. Stands to reason that they will have similar problems to Aon Dor manipulation because they're fueled by Shattered Shards. 

[Wandering Investor]

49 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Haven't re-read Elantris in a couple years so it was kinda hard for me to come up with much. My inclination would be to say it's the most limited of the 4 from a Cosmere perspective. 1, heavily location-dependant, so much so that a landscape change broke the magic. 2. User limited. With Nalthis everyone can become a magic user, economics is the limiting factor. Roshar, attract 1 of 10 Spren and boom. Access granted. Scadrial has genetic factors that limit access so you may not be in that 'lucky' 1%. But Sel? Becoming a Reod seems to me like a random process with absolutely no oversight. No skills involved. Granted there may be a choice with the Dakhor or Soul Forgery but I'm not sure enough about either to compare them with the others. Stands to reason that they will have similar problems to Aon Dor manipulation because they're fueled by Shattered Shards. 

To be clear, I was referring to the magic systems that covers the entire planet of Sel. It has a lot of different variations, and the AonDor practiced in Elantris is only one of them. And the other notes you made refer to how difficult it can be to enter the magic system, which is true, and the location and energy requirements, which can be problematic, but that has nothing to do with the capabilities of the system. As long as you know the correct symbols, a lot can be done, a larger variation of actions can be performed than any other system. Also, becoming an Elantrian is not totally random, the chosen tend to be devoted to something, so only mostly random.

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Most Mobile for me means most easily refueled. That's Metallic Arts. On the other hand Roshar has the largest gas station. As far as anywhere usage, yeah you can Awaken anywhere in the Cosmere but Breath is a finite resource. And at this point there's only 2 places to fuel Awakening, Nalthis for regular unleaded and Roshar for a bio diesel substitute.

Technically, the largest gas station award goes to Sel with the Dor. And even Allomancy has direct access to the spiritual reserves of a Shard, so more fuel than what is loose on Roshar. Roshar's fuel pumping rate is way higher than the others though, except maybe Sel if you can figure out how to channel the Dor.

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Haven't re-read Elantris in a couple years so it was kinda hard for me to come up with much. My inclination would be to say it's the most limited of the 4 from a Cosmere perspective. 1, heavily location-dependant, so much so that a landscape change broke the magic. 2. User limited. With Nalthis everyone can become a magic user, economics is the limiting factor. Roshar, attract 1 of 10 Spren and boom. Access granted. Scadrial has genetic factors that limit access so you may not be in that 'lucky' 1%. But Sel? Becoming a Reod seems to me like a random process with absolutely no oversight. No skills involved. Granted there may be a choice with the Dakhor or Soul Forgery but I'm not sure enough about either to compare them with the others. Stands to reason that they will have similar problems to Aon Dor manipulation because they're fueled by Shattered Shards. 

Gotta agree with Wandering Investor here, that would all fall under the Easiest Entry Point category.

Flexibility/Versatility/Capability would be in terms of what the magic can actually do, and in AonDor's case, it is literally programming reality. Given enough prep-time, you can do practically anything.

[Bigmikey357]

I can see where you are coming from re: versatility. The same things that make it difficult to gain access to the systems of Sel make it easy to do anything for the practitioner. Shattered Shards equal very little limits. Roshar's magic is bound up in Oaths, the Metallic Arts are quite structured, and Awakening, though awesome, is pretty much only one power. The rest of the benefits basically involves upgrading the person with the Breaths (hence Endowment).  Perfect pitch. Super color differentiation. Health. Now with Sel, what are the rules? Where are the limiting factors? If you can draw the symbols you can make the magic. So, knowledge.

[Steelheart]

Quote

5 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Easiest Entry Point:

That title goes to Awakening. Everybody in the system is born with a seed of the magic in Breath. It's not terribly difficult to get more, at least in comparison to the other systems. And if one gets enough Breath you get the magic handbook. In fact the only restrictions come when you make it to Cognitive Shadow territory and even that's not onerous. 1 Breath a week, substituted for any raw Investiture if breath isn't available.

 

 

In addition, anyone can receive Breath - even if they are not native to Nalthis. And once they have Breath, they are Awakeners same as Nalthians.

[Bigmikey357]

17 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

This depends on your criteria for mobile. If you mean easiest to get more fuel/power elsewhere, then it's the Metallic Arts for sure.
But if you mean most mobile in the sense of being able to be used anywhere, Awakening would tie with it because you can awaken practically anything, anywhere, with no hacking.

But the subjective ones make for the best debate

I agree that the subjective arguments are fun too. This thread is an attempt to supplement those arguments and kinda set some ground rules. Basically, this is what to expect were I a normal user in a given system. The protagonists of these stories are often outside the normal range of practitioners, doing things thought to be impossible by the standards of their time.

[Bigmikey357]

I have another Greater Cosmere Comparison. Most Limited Magic System: Surgebinding, Roshar edition. This is for a couple reasons. First, the magic is highly subjective. It depends on drawing a spren that corresponds to your core personality traits. And if something fundamentally changes about that personality you lose your powers. Second and most telling, in every magic system we've seen so far there are ways to gain everything that system has to offer. On Scadrial Rashek was a Fullborn. Nalthis, the Godking is at the highest Heightening and can do everything. On Sel, once you are granted power you are already at the highest level that system has to offer. Practice and study is the way to boost your abilities there. But Surgebinding is different. While you can do awesome things with the magic and you become a Compounder from the very first, the thing is, no matter how high you level up you can only master 2 of 10 abilities. Brandon has mentioned that it's not impossible to bond multiple spren but it doesn't seem possible for a person to encompass enough personality traits to bond all 10 Nahel spren, especially since some Orders contradict each other, and also because the Spren would reject that sort of soul splitting as a matter of course. Maybe some person with true multiple personality disorder could in theory accomplish this, but even in that scenario they would only be able to use one set of their abilities at a time.

[Master Knapper]

Most Limited:  Awakening. 

 -  There are a finite number of breaths available:  1 per person minus 1 per week per returned minus the number held by people who die without passing it on.  You would have a portion of the population that would be unwilling to sell their breath, either due to religious reasons, or due to the negative effects (reduced resistance to disease, loss of life-sense).  Unless you are very rich, it is very difficult to gather enough to do anything.

-  Awakening is a very difficult art to learn.  Vasher has been studying and awakening for centuries, and he admits that they only know the commands for a fraction of the things that could be done.  You have to know the right command, and be able to hold the correct visualization to do even the simplest tasks.

- Requires a third component.  So even if you have enough breath, and know the exact command, you need to have color available to complete the task.  This is an easy component to acquire, but does limit the magic.  Allows method for controlling an awakener (see Vahr's cell).

 

[Bigmikey357]

Becoming an Awakener and mastering the skill is indeed difficult. But the highest level can indeed be reached. My argument is that the highest level anyone can achieve in SA will only let a person master 2 surges out of 10. No one can master all 10 surges and use them at once. No one has access to the full magic system nor is it possible. I know of only 2 ways in which it might work and I'm not even sure it's possible. You could bind all the Nahel spren (or I guess 5 out of 10 as long as you bind the ones where the surges don't overlap), or you bind all the honorblades. The reason the first may not work is that the Spren would oppose an action like that. The second could be because there may be a cancellation effect, much like the harmonium medallions on Scadrial Era 2. Either way, even if it is possible, one could not use all the abilities at the same time. Like, a person that achieved the impossible wouldn't be able to Lightweave and fly at the same time for instance. 

[Master Knapper]

On the other hand, what can a highest level Awakener do, and how does that compare to a Knight Radiant with two surges?  Outside of the creation of Nightblood, what has an awakener done that couldn't be countered or outdone by a KR?  Vasher uses breaths to awaken clothing to protect and fight for him.  A KR has shardplate and shardblade that would be far more effective.  If injured, a KR can use stormlight to heal.  Breath may help healing, but we see with the injuries that Denth gives to Vasher that this healing isn't quick or automatic.

This isn't even bringing the surges into it.  When we see what Kaladin and Szeth can do with the gravitation and adhesion surges, it is hard to imagine breath keeping up.

Not that that is a bad thing.  Per Sanderson's second law, that make Awakening the more interesting magic system.

[RShara]

In an extended battle, a top level Awakener, like the god king, would actually probably win against a KR. The KR will eventually run out of stormlight, but the Awakener's Breaths and Awakened objects will keep going indefinitely.So if the Awakener can manage like, Defend Me type Commands, until the KR runs out of stormlight, then attack, he should have a decent chance.

[MarShadow]

But that depends on if they know who they are fighting and where they are.

[The One Who Connects]

On 6/16/2018 at 2:46 PM, MarShadow said:

But that depends on if they know who they are fighting and where they are.

Not necessarily. There's more to fighting than knowing what you/they are doing.

The Radiant has a limited fuel source, regardless of whether or not the Awakener knows that. Awakening doesn't have healing, so a Combat Awakener should be versed in defensive commands, no matter who they are fighting. When encountering a magic they've never seen before, both parties should be cautious at first, which makes the fight last longer, unintentionally giving the Awakener a twofold advantage.

[Arrae]

On 6/14/2018 at 1:16 PM, Master Knapper said:

Most Limited:  Awakening. 

 -  There are a finite number of breaths available:  1 per person minus 1 per week per returned minus the number held by people who die without passing it on.  You would have a portion of the population that would be unwilling to sell their breath, either due to religious reasons, or due to the negative effects (reduced resistance to disease, loss of life-sense).  Unless you are very rich, it is very difficult to gather enough to do anything.

-  Awakening is a very difficult art to learn.  Vasher has been studying and awakening for centuries, and he admits that they only know the commands for a fraction of the things that could be done.  You have to know the right command, and be able to hold the correct visualization to do even the simplest tasks.

- Requires a third component.  So even if you have enough breath, and know the exact command, you need to have color available to complete the task.  This is an easy component to acquire, but does limit the magic.  Allows method for controlling an awakener (see Vahr's cell).

 

I think this really depends on how much money you have, because the biggest issue with gaining more Breath seems to be buying it. Sure, you wouldn't be able to get a Breath from everybody in the population, but you don't need the Breath of the entire population, just a few hundred to be a powerful Awakener. To get about to the level of a Returned, you only need 5,000 Breaths, which is probably only a small fraction of a city the size of Hallandren.

[MarShadow]

1 hour ago, The One Who Connects said:

Not necessarily. There's more to fighting than knowing what you/they are doing.

The Radiant has a limited fuel source, regardless of whether or not the Awakener knows that. Awakening doesn't have healing, so a Combat Awakener should be versed in defensive commands, no matter who they are fighting. When encountering a magic they've never seen before, both parties should be cautious at first, which makes the fight last longer, unintentionally giving the Awakener a twofold advantage.

Alright, thanks for the input!

[bmcclure7]

Awakening is the least versital of all these systems. You really  only have one power. It is also (at least in my opinion) the least suited for combat. It is also most accessible and (in my opinion) the most interesting of the above systems.

[Kramerfarve]

Could a shard blade destroy a breath via slashing an awakened construct?

[+ElephantEarwax]

1 hour ago, Kramerfarve said:

Could a shard blade destroy a breath via slashing an awakened construct?

Quote

Nemuri

If a Shardblade was used on an Awakened object, would it physically harm the object, destroy the Breath, or a combination of the two?

Brandon Sanderson

You will someday know.

source

Quote

mycoltbug

Would a Breath imbued object stop a Shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO.

source

The consensus is RAFO.

 

2 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Awakening is the least versital of all these systems. You really  only have one power. It is also (at least in my opinion) the least suited for combat. It is also most accessible and (in my opinion) the most interesting of the above systems.

But, the commands can do tons of stuff. And you can make lifeless, and command them to do stuff. Also Nightblood.

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Awakening#Awakening_Commands

[bmcclure7]

True but a the moment the number if different what you can do with the comands is less then the things you can do with the mental arts or the powers of the knights radiant.

[recneps]

Awakening honestly is more versatile than it's been given credit for. A simple method is via Lifeless: You become a literal necromancer. Additionally, there's the potential of Awakened machines.. Give a metal turbine the command to "Spin," and you have an infinite, fuelless generator.

[+Sorana]

I think it depends on what you want to do and in what situation you are in. This changes what power is the "best".

For example if you want to make your daily life easier, or then Awakening is great (See the Generator example above @recneps). But if you are a soldier standing in the first row of a battle, then using the metallic art or different surges would be more helpfull for your survival.

What I want to say is, that the metallic arts seem to be more versatile or useful than Awakening but in the end each System is really strong when used for cases it is specialized in. So imo I feel like they are balanced (not completely but balanced) each in their own world with It's own opportunities and dangers.