Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW

[Zapata]

7 minutes ago, Enter a username said:

What's the point of a boarding party? Unless you're planning to take prisoners or steal fabrails or something else that requires the fabrial ship to remain intact, Scadrial has the technology to completely destroy it.

they would at least need to get the bomb over to the ship, since a flying bomb would probably be slow enough to be stopped at this point. And coinshots could not throw it over either, since they have no weight to push with.

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

So Agent Quicksilver arrives on Roshar to scout. Gets attacked by a shardbearer who throws a painrial net over him. For a few instants he feels searing pain but he burns it away feigning incapacity. When the shardbearer is about 10 paces away he draws and fires his revolver shooting right through the eye slit in the visor killing the shardbearer. After spending a few days bonding the shardblade left behind he uses the connection to store the shadow of the identity of the previous radiant. He experiences why they broke their bond and stores the pain of that breaking into the painrial while re-establishing the bond with the cryptic that formed the sword at the level before death. He makes an oath to revive as many other dead spren as he can before he is stopped while guaranteeing the safety of Scadrial from Rosharan invasion. He uses the radiant bond to the cryptic to find the matching plate. When he confronts the Shardbearer he is attacked at which time he disolves the shardplate and shoot that radiant in the head then proceeds to bond and revive the leftover blade adding a Reacher spren to his arsenal. The next plate leads to find and bond a cultivation spren after dispatching the shardbearer.

As he is investigating Alethcar he is accosted by a Skybreaker and the fight begins. The Skybreaker summons his blade stabbing Quicksilver through the body. For a moment it seems as if the fight will be over right there but the Skybreaker suddenly feels a painful tug against his spren bond. Quicksilver stored some of the Skybreakers identity and burned away the shard wound. Then he shoots the Skybreaker through the eye ending the fight and completing the bond transfer by tapping the Skybreakers stolen identity.

With the near complete bonding of all Rosharan surges he forms a Nahel bond through his feruchemy to Harmony making him the forth kind of bond smith with full metalborn potential.

So you do realize that pretty much everything in this scenario would not work at all, and is breaking established working principles of Roshars magic right? Also what powers does your agent have? You seem to assume connection, but some weird bondsmithy version, not f-duralumin one. Based on resilience you also assume compounded gold?

1. While pewter allows to ignore pain to some extant it will not make you completely immune to it, but okay lets go with them completely ignoring it.
2. The slit is not there unless Radiant wills it, and approaching unknown threat they would be dumb to do that, so they will not kill them in one shot.
3. Killing Radiant does not leave behind shardblade, that requires willing breaking of oaths (and possibly some other things considering the result of Recreance was unexpected).
4. After a few days even cognitive shadow of Radiant would be gone (most invested beings last maybe few minutes after death).
5. How the hell is he storing pain into painrial? That is not how painrials work at all, they work by amplifying bodies response (they are augmenter fabrials).
6. You cannot just reestablish bond, you would need to reswear ideals, or swear new one (as both Kal and Shallan demonstrate)
7. You cannot just make up oaths, they must be in line with the order (and for cryptics you are mentioning those are not even oaths but truths). Plus they must be accepted, so you must truly mean them in the dephts of soul.
8. As point two, the slit is not there (and what is it with people from Scadrial and perfect aim and never missing?)
9. Bonding a blade =/= bonding a spren, and bonding into multiple different orders is extremely difficult (i.e. no one has done that).
10. Even radiant cannot just shrug off shardblade to spine, they would need to have stormlight in them.
11. Again, eye slit not there.
12. If bonding two is hard, more than two is outright impossible
13. What are you talking about, nahel bond to Harmony? You do know that nahel bond is two way street right? And bonding shards is not possible?

I am sorry, but have you even read these books? And if all these shenanigans are possible (they are not), than bondsmith can do that to some random Radiant and any mistborn/twinborn is facing someone with all 10 surges surely (oh, and they have each surge twice, so even more powerful)

Quote

The greatest weakness of Rosharan magic is that it can be assumed by anyone who fits the ideals of the relevant spren. At this time the conflict needs to be on Roshar as none of the spren who provide investiture can leave the system and stormlight needed to fuel it are only available there as well. Anywhere you can find the relevant metals Scadrian investiture works. Swinging Kolos swords is comparable to wielding shardhammers, so we have comparable strength. Brandon hand waved on pewter speed vs steel speed in the quoted material earlier, but compounded speed is near infinite just like compounded health. A thug would not have broken there legs like Kal did because of their increased durability. By the way Vin head butted a Thug and smashed his skull with D-Pewter so it was hard head vs very hard head neither had regular bone density. Scadrian science works throughout the cosmere but Rosharn science does not yet. In addition ultimately the combinations of abilities provide Scadiral with some the greatest advantages in the Cosmere.

And the spren has to agree to bond them, you cannot force them, they can choose as they have free will. Shardplate is a lot stronger than even flared pewter. Compounded steel can provide you with near unlimited store of speed, but two things:

1. Faster tapping is increasingly penalized, so to get 2x the speed you need more than 4x times as investiture, and increasing multiples are even worse.
2. Air resistance is still a thing, they will be able to run fast no doubt, but without specialized equipment they are not even breaking sound barrier. With specialized equipment they are limited by various melting points of metals, so to at best Mach 8. Not so much unlimited speed.

Thug would have also been unable to perform that manouver at such speed. And if they did break a leg by any chance, they would not heal it in seconds (Kal healed the leg so fast no one noticed).

If Scadrial is oh so powerful, why the hell did Odium not try to recruit them for his crusade, like he is trying with Surgebinders? Unlike on Roshar where two Shards were united, on Scadrial they worked against one another, it would have made much easier target for based on your comment a better prize.

And one last thing, the Surges we are seeing are artificially bound by Honor/Ishar, so we are only seeing restricted version of them.

Quote

Yeah it probably takes that kind of energy to unlock the Iron allomancy key for Iron pulls so most of that energy goes into that not into boiling the body.

Allomantic burning is not burning, read the coppermind, it is right there. The word burning in description is purely metaphorical.

Edited March 25, 2021 by therunner
added second and third quote and reaction to it, spelling

[Enter a username he/him]

9 minutes ago, Bearer of Agonies said:

they would at least need to get the bomb over to the ship, since a flying bomb would probably be slow enough to be stopped at this point. And coinshots could not throw it over either, since they have no weight to push with.

The Scadrians could probably just maneuver themselves over the fabrial ship and drop it. And Coinshots could climb to the bottom and Push with the combined weight of the entire ship, its crew, and any gear they have on board.

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, Enter a username said:

I don't understand this.

The Radiant wouldn't be on deck for very long: The Steelrunner can tap large amounts of steel and discharge 2-3 aluminum kolossblood/Pewterarm bullets into the Radiant's chest (more to break the Plate, if there is any). This should kill the Radiant. If not, stab them with an aluminum dagger. They'd then get a few Pewterarms/Brutes/Pewter Compounders to throw the now dead Radiant off the ship, or just do it themselves if there's no Plate.

Landing on the ship, even for a second, might as well be a cannon ball, it would throw the whole ship off, if it's fourteen time the size it might survive, but a single downwards lashing will drop the entire ship from the air.

And the steelrunner can't run effecivly in a free fall.

53 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Kel serves Ruin more than preservation.

Great, forge a connection to Preservation instead, and block Kel from doing anything using the Balance, while Odium kills him and splinters the shard.

53 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

So Agent Quicksilver arrives on Roshar to scout. Gets attacked by a shardbearer who throws a painrial net over him. For a few instants he feels searing pain but he burns it away feigning incapacity. When the shardbearer is about 10 paces away he draws and fires his revolver shooting right through the eye slit in the visor killing the shardbearer. After spending a few days bonding the shardblade left behind he uses the connection to store the shadow of the identity of the previous radiant. He experiences why they broke their bond and stores the pain of that breaking into the painrial while re-establishing the bond with the cryptic that formed the sword at the level before death. He makes an oath to revive as many other dead spren as he can before he is stopped while guaranteeing the safety of Scadrial from Rosharan invasion. He uses the radiant bond to the cryptic to find the matching plate. When he confronts the Shardbearer he is attacked at which time he disolves the shardplate and shoot that radiant in the head then proceeds to bond and revive the leftover blade adding a Reacher spren to his arsenal. The next plate leads to find and bond a cultivation spren after dispatching the shardbearer.

As he is investigating Alethcar he is accosted by a Skybreaker and the fight begins. The Skybreaker summons his blade stabbing Quicksilver through the body. For a moment it seems as if the fight will be over right there but the Skybreaker suddenly feels a painful tug against his spren bond. Quicksilver stored some of the Skybreakers identity and burned away the shard wound. Then he shoots the Skybreaker through the eye ending the fight and completing the bond transfer by tapping the Skybreakers stolen identity.

With the near complete bonding of all Rosharan surges he forms a Nahel bond through his feruchemy to Harmony making him the forth kind of bond smith with full metalborn potential.

Ok, there are so many problems with this.

1. How on earth does he burn away pain, that makes no sense, it's a painrail, it feels as if nails are being shoved into every part of you, eyes included, it's not something you 'burn off' even pewter would be hard pressed to counter that.

2.The difficulty in shooting through an eyeslit, before you opponent even notices that you are still contious is unbelivable. You aim and fire in the fraction of a second and manage to make it through the eye slit? That's not just unreal that's impossible.

3. Storing someone elses's identity? How? that makes no sense.

4. what on earth is that last paragraph that has zero evidence to support it, it doesn't even make sense with what we know of the Cosmere.

53 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Your right mistborn are unknown in the population of 2nd era but we only have 2 maybe 3 4th oath by the end of ROW so for now both are extremes.

Yeah it probably takes that kind of energy to unlock the Iron allomancy key for Iron pulls so most of that energy goes into that not into boiling the body.

I am with you. I must warn you that most of these guys you have been debating seem to believe Radiants are invincible. I also think there is more potential with twinborn than with full mistborn, but you make a great case.

there are no Mistborn, want to go head to head with roshar with Scadrial's current metalborn Population? Radiants will only increase form here, but if War started the Metalborn population would plumet.

We've been over this the word burning is the only evidence you have to support your claim, everything else says otherwise.

@Enter a username knows us better than you, he is well aware of the beliefs of the SA fandom, this argument gets braught up every couple of months here, this thread is nothing new. And if you would listen to us for one second you would know that we think it is possible to kill a Radiant, just not easy, and especially not as easy as you make it seem.

57 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I agree with @AirsickAviar that the physical abilities of metalborn actually do exceed those of Radiants. One thing the Rosharites fail to address is that feats of strength on Roshar are tempered by the lower gravity so are actually less impressive than they seem.

Alright let's do an analysis

An adult male African Bush Elephant weighs 13,000 pounds and is ten feet tall, multiply by six and we have a sixty foot tall 78000 pound Chasmfiend(I know Chasmfieds weigh less due to bonds but the one Dalinar held was massive so I think it works out)

Now we take that as seventy percent gravity and Dalinar was holding around 54,600 pounds, and given that here it says crushing a human skull takes a maximum of 1,200 pounds of force Now Vin almost liquidated his head so let's give her ten times the amount of force necesarry so 12,000 pounds of force, even if the Chasmfiends weight is off by half Dalinar still almost doubles the amount of force Vin used.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

The greatest weakness of Rosharan magic is that it can be assumed by anyone who fits the ideals of the relevant spren. At this time the conflict needs to be on Roshar as none of the spren who provide investiture can leave the system and stormlight needed to fuel it are only available there as well. Anywhere you can find the relevant metals Scadrian investiture works. Swinging Kolos swords is comparable to wielding shardhammers, so we have comparable strength. Brandon hand waved on pewter speed vs steel speed in the quoted material earlier, but compounded speed is near infinite just like compounded health. A thug would not have broken there legs like Kal did because of their increased durability. By the way Vin head butted a Thug and smashed his skull with D-Pewter so it was hard head vs very hard head neither had regular bone density. Scadrian science works throughout the cosmere but Rosharn science does not yet. In addition ultimately the combinations of abilities provide Scadiral with some the greatest advantages in the Cosmere.

If you can turn spren on Roshar, Rosharans can cause war between the north and the south, or just civil war in Elendel Basin, both sides are united.

On top of this, Medalions can be used by anyone as well, and that doesn't require traitors, so I don't see how that helps you.

[Enter a username he/him]

16 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Landing on the ship, even for a second, might as well be a cannon ball, it would throw the whole ship off, if it's fourteen time the size it might survive, but a single downwards lashing will drop the entire ship from the air.

Actually, re-reading slightly earlier, the warehouse the airship was stored in was the size of a small town. I think it's safe to say that it's much, much bigger than fourteen times.

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, Enter a username said:

Actually, re-reading slightly earlier, the warehouse the airship was stored in was the size of a small town. I think it's safe to say that it's much, much bigger than fourteen times.

How large was the escape pod? it's been a year.

[Enter a username he/him]

Just now, Frustration said:

How large was the escape pod? it's been a year.

Wax compared it to "the cab of a motorcar with the doors ripped off," and it was big enough to comfortably fit six people, plus equipment, so I'd guess roughly four feet by eight feet, or something along those lines.

[Frustration he/him]

10 minutes ago, Enter a username said:

Actually, re-reading slightly earlier, the warehouse the airship was stored in was the size of a small town. I think it's safe to say that it's much, much bigger than fourteen times.

Can I get the quote from that, for comparison?

Sorry to make you do the work man.

[Enter a username he/him]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Can I get the quote from that, for comparison?

Quote

All in all, the thing felt like the cab of a motorcar with the doors ripped off.

I miscounted the first time; there were actually seven people: Wax, Wayne, Steris, Marasi, MeLaan, Allik, and Telsin (who I forgot the first time).

Quote

"Seven people," the masked man said. "And supplies. Above the weight Wilg is supposed to carry, but she should manage."

And while I was reading, I found that there was actually a measurement in the book:

Quote

The vehicle was small--barely six feet wide, though it was maybe twice as long--and had wide openings like doorways on either side.

Edited March 25, 2021 by Enter a username
Quote

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, Enter a username said:

I miscounted the first time; there were actually seven people: Wax, Wayne, Steris, Marasi, MeLaan, Allik, and Telsin (who I forgot the first time).

And while I was reading, I found that there was actually a measurement in the book:

six by twelve for the escape cab alright, thanks, but what about the main ship?

[Enter a username he/him]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

six by twelve for the escape cab alright, thanks, but what about the main ship?

The size of the warehouse the Set had it in:

Quote

"What do you think?" he asked. "Is that some kind of bunker?"

"Doesn't look like any fort I've seen," MeLaan whispered. "With those flimsy walls? Looks more like a big warehouse." 

A warehouse as large as a small town. Wax shook his head in bafflement, then spotted something...

The rest of the paragraph doesn't really go into any more detail about the warehouse. About the ship itself: 

Quote

Why would they be building a ship here, miles and miles from the ocean? The thing couldn't be easy to move. It filled almost the entire building, with a curved bottom and a prow--unfinished on one side--that was easily three stories high. The thing had two long, armlike extensions at the sides. Pontoons? They were big, and one wasn't finished yet, ending in a jagged line of construction.

 

[Frustration he/him]

Alright I've run the math, and given what I've seen the larger ships would be too large for a Radiant to significantly disrupt them.

[therunner he/him]

On the topic of airships and Radiants, I think better way to attack the ships would be to form the sprenblade into a hollow cone with sharp ridges on top (sort of like an umbrella) and then the Radiant should lash themselves head first at the ship while holding the sprenbrella ahead of them. Due to invested cutting of the ridges and their shear mass they should easily cut through the ship, destroying everything in their path again due to invested cutting ability. I think the sprenbrella would still be withing limits of their shapeshifting, assuming diameter of 1,2 m.

On the topic of shooting eye slit from 10 paces, 10 paces = 7,5 meters, eye slits are about 3 cm tall at best. That gives allowed angle of spread of 0,22 degree (~3/750 radians), so if the gun has barrel length of 25 cm, that allows deviation from ideal direction of only 0,5 mm to either side, so the window of opportunity is 1mm in the vertical direction. That is one hell of a shot to pull, if their hands shook from a step of half-ton Radiant they would miss, if the Radiant stumbled they would miss, if the Radiant slowed down by a fraction they would miss. Not to mention that pointing a gun with 25 cm long barrel at someone is not exactly inconspicuous.

[Enter a username he/him]

9 minutes ago, therunner said:

On the topic of airships and Radiants, I think better way to attack the ships would be to form the sprenblade into a hollow cone with sharp ridges on top (sort of like an umbrella) and then the Radiant should lash themselves head first at the ship while holding the sprenbrella ahead of them. Due to invested cutting of the ridges and their shear mass they should easily cut through the ship, destroying everything in their path again due to invested cutting ability. I think the sprenbrella would still be withing limits of their shapeshifting, assuming diameter of 1,2 m.

The stuff they cut through would stay in that sprenbrella, though; Shardblades (excluding Nightblood) don't destroy whatever they hit. They can only cut. Even if the Radiant made it into the ship, which I find unlikely, they almost certainly wouldn't make it through another wall, and someone armed with aluminum bullets would most likely prove lethal. 

[Zapata]

2 minutes ago, Enter a username said:

The stuff they cut through would stay in that sprenbrella, though; Shardblades (excluding Nightblood) don't destroy whatever they hit. They can only cut. Even if the Radiant made it into the ship, which I find unlikely, they almost certainly wouldn't make it through another wall, and someone armed with aluminum bullets would most likely prove lethal. 

no, the point goes through the ship. like a drill shape, i suppose. so it should be able to pass through almost anything pretty easily.

[Frustration he/him]

3 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

All it took was a shardblade to disrupt connection manipulation. For all we know a coppercloud could cause disruption.

DId you just use "All it took" and NIGHTBLOOD in the same sentence! And Compare him to a copercloud no less.

Nightblood colapsed a perpendicularity, chipped an Honorblade, and killed the Vessel of a shard of Adonalsium. Good luck doing that with a coppercloud.

[The Technovore he/him]

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Maybe once 4th oath might have been common, though according to the books most didn't reach that point, but at this time they are most definitely not.

Shardblades are essentially sharpened mist. They cut because they are invested. With the investiture drained at best they are ordinary metal swords, but because of their connection to the person they would potentially make great bridge to that persons investiture.

I am with you. I must warn you that most of these guys you have been debating seem to believe Radiants are invincible. I also think there is more potential with twinborn than with full mistborn, but you make a great case.

I agree with @AirsickAviar that the physical abilities of metalborn actually do exceed those of Radiants. One thing the Rosharites fail to address is that feats of strength on Roshar are tempered by the lower gravity so are actually less impressive than they seem.

The greatest weakness of Rosharan magic is that it can be assumed by anyone who fits the ideals of the relevant spren. At this time the conflict needs to be on Roshar as none of the spren who provide investiture can leave the system and stormlight needed to fuel it are only available there as well. Anywhere you can find the relevant metals Scadrian investiture works. Swinging Kolos swords is comparable to wielding shardhammers, so we have comparable strength. Brandon hand waved on pewter speed vs steel speed in the quoted material earlier, but compounded speed is near infinite just like compounded health. A thug would not have broken there legs like Kal did because of their increased durability. By the way Vin head butted a Thug and smashed his skull with D-Pewter so it was hard head vs very hard head neither had regular bone density. Scadrian science works throughout the cosmere but Rosharn science does not yet. In addition ultimately the combinations of abilities provide Scadiral with some the greatest advantages in the Cosmere.

SMH I can't believe I just read all this. I'm not going to address the hypothetical because it's based in Benduluke's version of the Cosmere, not Brandon's. 

Point 1: We're not assuming Roshar in RoW, we're looking at Rosharan magic vs Scadrian magic, but if anything we're looking at some point 10 years in Roshar's future compared to some 2-3 years in Scadrial's future. If we're going to be using limitations from the books, then Scadrial doesn't get to have medallions or airships or ettmetal bombs because North and South Scad have no relationship, nor do they get a standing army of metalborn, because 'according to the books' there's no evidence that North Scad has an organized military beyond their police force. 

Point 2: ...dude, are you seriously polarizing this conversation into "Rosharites" vs "Scadrites"? This is not that cut and dry, and to be completely frank it's insulting to accuse over half the contributors of this thread of disingenous bias, just because we don't agree that F-Aluminum can store other people's identity (Feruchemy doesn't work that way), that f-Iron can make black holes (Compounding can't reach those numbers), or that steelcompounding can break mach 20 (too many other environmental factors prevent that and Brandon has said so). If you're going to try and label us into camps and polarize this convo, if that's the direction this conversation is moving, this thread is going to get locked within four pages, I guarantee it. This is not supposed to be dividing the community, this is supposed to be a healthy debate between two major book series within the same narrative universe. Please don't ruin it for everyone.

Point 3: No, Shardblades are not essentially sharpened mist, you would know that if you actually read the SA books. Shardblades are the bodies of spren manifesting in the physical realm as godmetal. It is pure investiture in the form of matter. With Investiture drained they aren't anything at all because they wouldn't exist anymore. This is a basic fact in SA, it's a literal plot point.

Point 4: Anyone who fits the ideals of the relevant spren and who can convince a spren to bond them. If a Scadrian's plan is to kill a Radiant and immediately bond their spren, they're going to be sorely disappointed because spren have sapience, and we established pages ago that "United Roshar, United Scadrial." If Roshar isn't united and you can just steal a spren bond, then it won't take much for to convince the Set or some scholar to divulge all the secrets of the metallic arts. 

Point 5: Vin broke her leg in TFE by being thrown against a wall. Pewter didn't let her stand again. Pewter didn't stop her leg from breaking. She was helpless until the mists came and boosted her. 

Point 6: I'm perfectly happy to discuss how a Mistborn can kill a Radiant. Three pages ago I gave an actually plausible way for a Mistborn to do it. I think that a Mistborn can trump any inexperienced Oath 3 just by virtue of Bendalloy+Electrum+Chromium and finished with a nice swing to the head via hammer or mace. Similarly any Feruchemist with a decent store of Pewter+Steel+Iron+Gold can blitz an Oath 3 or even an Oath 4 and do serious damage. You don't need to make up your own version of the Cosmere to make it work. Again, let's not make this into a "Rosharite" vs "Scadrite" thing. All we need to make this go well is some intellectual honesty and some knowledge of the material in question.

Unrelated Bonus Point:

We know there was no attempt to balance the magic systems by Brandon, but by definition the Shards and Vessels are largely equal. Could we say that if Harmony saw Scadrial was in trouble (if Roshar found a way to get Radiants off-world, perhaps), he could rally a sizable army of metalborn? If we say he doesn't make a ton of Fullborn (because we ALL know it'd be an overwhelming Scad victory if he did), how many numbers in Mistborn and Feruchemists could we imagine him mustering? How could Roshar compete if suddenly their knights were outnumbered 2 or 3-to-1 against metalborn? 

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by The Technovore
Wanted to add to the conversation so I added the Bonus Point

[therunner he/him]

8 hours ago, Enter a username said:

The stuff they cut through would stay in that sprenbrella, though; Shardblades (excluding Nightblood) don't destroy whatever they hit. They can only cut. Even if the Radiant made it into the ship, which I find unlikely, they almost certainly wouldn't make it through another wall, and someone armed with aluminum bullets would most likely prove lethal. 

Yeah, like @Bearer of Agonies said, the points goes through, sharpened ridges cut up the wall and the momentum of half-ton radiant in plate pushes the cut up walls inward, and being lashed at least twice would make them effectively be 1 ton falling sharpened bullet. Since the ships must store weight they will not put up that much resistance on the momentum front (ships density has to be lower than density of air). Assuming the entire ships has constant density of 1kg/m^3 than and sprenbrella has radius of 1m, if the the Radiant need to push through 40m of the ship, all the weight in their way is just ~125kg (density*volume =1 * pi*(1^2)*40) so lashed Radiant should have no issue flying through that.

You could diminish the effectiveness of this tactic by making the outer part of the ship from aluminum. However that might interfere with the mechanics of the ship, or force the storing apparatus to work harder if it cannot store from/into aluminum.

From @Frustration

Quote

An adult male African Bush Elephant weighs 13,000 pounds and is ten feet tall, multiply by six and we have a sixty foot tall 78000 pound Chasmfiend(I know Chasmfieds weigh less due to bonds but the one Dalinar held was massive so I think it works out)

Now we take that as seventy percent gravity and Dalinar was holding around 54,600 pounds, and given that here it says crushing a human skull takes a maximum of 1,200 pounds of force Now Vin almost liquidated his head so let's give her ten times the amount of force necesarry so 12,000 pounds of force, even if the Chasmfiends weight is off by half Dalinar still almost doubles the amount of force Vin used.

I would correct the numbers a bit here. That would be a chasmfied that is 6 times as tall as the length of african elephant, but with their height and width unchanged. Chasmfiend per coppermind are 20 feet wide x 36 feet tall at peak x ~72 feet long, so in metric units 6 m x 11m x 22 m. African elephant would be ~1.5 m wide x 4 m tall x 5m long. In total the Chasmfiend has volume larger by a factor of 4x2.75x4.4 = 48.5, so lets conservatively assume ~40 times. Largest african elephants can weight at 15000 pounds ~ 7 tons, hence our chasmfiend weights at 7*40*0.7 = 196 tons in Roshars gravity, or 420 000 pounds.

Of course chasmfiends also attract Mandras, making them lighter than they should be, but even if 90% of their weight is taken by them, they still weigh at 42000 pounds, and Dalinar held exceptionally large one, that was also attacking, with deadplate. Either way, deadplate feat is at least at 2-3 times greater than what was demonstrated by Vin with duralumin. I would assume that burst strength of plate could be even larger than sustained strength needed to support an object.

From @The Technovore

Quote

Unrelated Bonus Point:

We know there was no attempt to balance the magic systems by Brandon, but by definition the Shards and Vessels are largely equal. Could we say that if Harmony saw Scadrial was in trouble (if Roshar found a way to get Radiants off-world, perhaps), he could rally a sizable army of metalborn? If we say he doesn't make a ton of Fullborn (because we ALL know it'd be an overwhelming Scad victory if he did), how many numbers in Mistborn and Feruchemists could we imagine him mustering? How could Roshar compete if suddenly their knights were outnumbered 2 or 3-to-1 against metalborn? 

So if Harmony did not make too many Fullborn (that would make Scadrial clearly victorious) and if we allow shards to produce more than usual number of magic users, I could see Cultivation and Odium teeming up to create ~20 additional bondsmiths. Empowered Sja-Anat could likely force corrupted spren to force spren to bond people of her liking (although this would go against her temperament, but cultivation could cultivate that out of her) to make larger standing armies. Not to mention that unchained bondsmith could remove the oath requirement on surgebinders to get pre-reformed possibly unrestricted surgebinders (Ishar was the one who placed Oath requirements), question is if this would not result in them loosing the plate for example but I am gonna assume that no.

All together, they could then field armies larger than any before with surgebinders unrestricted by oaths and fueled by commanding bondsmits for unlimited -light. We should also not neglect Singers, Stormform could prove very useful against metalborn and Scadrian tech (yay for conduction), Smokeform could be useful for concealed attacks and Nightform might be useful as seemingly partially precognitive sentries. Fused will also be useful, with Nex-im (like Pursuer) potentially able to quickly disable metalborn with their teleporting (this might be blocked by strong enough coppercloud though).

Even if Cultivation and Odium do not interfere (outside of telling Dalinar how to unchain surgebinders) removing the oath requirement on oaths would help with faster recruiting. However, I am not sure if that would be enough to resist such empowered Scadrial, with the 3-4 bondsmith limit maybe proving to be the Achilles heel of Roshar, as they would be limited to only 3-4 longer lasting battles at time.

Edited March 26, 2021 by therunner
added second and third quote

[Frustration he/him]

11 hours ago, The Technovore said:

Unrelated Bonus Point:

We know there was no attempt to balance the magic systems by Brandon, but by definition the Shards and Vessels are largely equal. Could we say that if Harmony saw Scadrial was in trouble (if Roshar found a way to get Radiants off-world, perhaps), he could rally a sizable army of metalborn? If we say he doesn't make a ton of Fullborn (because we ALL know it'd be an overwhelming Scad victory if he did), how many numbers in Mistborn and Feruchemists could we imagine him mustering? How could Roshar compete if suddenly their knights were outnumbered 2 or 3-to-1 against metalborn? 

Roshar has two shards that aren't activly trying to destroy one another by intent, and a third that could be unsplintered, I think it's best for Scadrial that we leave shards out of the equation.

[Gisaku75]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I would correct the numbers a bit here. That would be a chasmfied that is 6 times as tall as the length of african elephant, but with their height and width unchanged. Chasmfiend per coppermind are 20 feet wide x 36 feet tall at peak x ~72 feet long, so in metric units 6 m x 11m x 22 m. African elephant would be ~1.5 m wide x 4 m tall x 5m long. In total the Chasmfiend has volume larger by a factor of 4x2.75x4.4 = 48.5, so lets conservatively assume ~40 times. Largest african elephants can weight at 15000 pounds ~ 7 tons, hence our chasmfiend weights at 7*40*0.7 = 196 tons in Roshars gravity, or 420 000 pounds.

Of course chasmfiends also attract Mandras, making them lighter than they should be, but even if 90% of their weight is taken by them, they still weigh at 42000 pounds, and Dalinar held exceptionally large one, that was also attacking, with deadplate. Either way, deadplate feat is at least at 2-3 times greater than what was demonstrated by Vin with duralumin. I would assume that burst strength of plate could be even larger than sustained strength needed to support an object.

There is no scene where Vin lifts something while using d-pewter.

At the end of the Luthadel siege, Staff's army is lining up to attack. They will be at a distance of at least 500 meters from the city. Vin makes a D-Steel jump and within moments reaches Staff and cuts him in two along with his horse, landing without a scratch while he is flaring pewter. I don't mean ballistics but I guess the highest point of a 500 meter parabola is about 150/200 meters 500/650 feet. Dalinar in shardplate after a fall of just 50 feet, held back by buildings, has lost all the pieces of the left arm and the rest of the plate is in pitiful condition. It is quite evident that pewter strengthens a body much more than a shardplate.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Gisaku75

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, Gisaku75 said:

There is no scene where Vin lifts something while using d-pewter.

At the end of the Luthadel siege, Staff's army is lining up to attack. They will be at a distance of at least 500 meters from the city. Vin makes a D-Steel jump and within moments reaches Staff and cuts him in two along with his horse, landing without a scratch while he is flaring pewter. I don't mean ballistics but I guess the highest point of a 500 meter parabola is about 150/200 meters 500/650 feet. Dalinar in shardplate after a fall of just 50 feet, held back by buildings, has lost all the pieces of the left kiss and the rest of the amatura is in pitiful condition. It is quite evident that pewter strengthens a body much more than a shardplate.

1. Straff is a Tineye not a thug

2. A parabola doesn't make sense given what we know of Steel, it would be a single shot,

[Gisaku75]

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

1. Straff is a Tineye not a thug

2. A parabola doesn't make sense given what we know of Steel, it would be a single shot,

1 And then? We are talking about a man in armor and a horse cut with a single blow as if they were paper.

2 The scene is clear, Vin starts upward, the thrust of the steel wears off, then plummets towards Staff from about 500 feet high. So we are talking about a parable. and the fall does not cause any harm.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Gisaku75

[Frustration he/him]

43 minutes ago, Gisaku75 said:

1 And then? We are talking about a man in armor and a horse cut with a single blow as if they were paper.

Crushed is more like it, that's how Brandon describes it, crushed by the force of the hit, not cut.

43 minutes ago, Gisaku75 said:

2 The scene is clear, Vin starts upward, the thrust of the steel wears off, then plummets towards Staff from about 500 feet high. So we are talking about a parable. and the fall does not cause any harm.

Does it say 500 feet in text?

Edited March 26, 2021 by Frustration

[Gisaku75]

42 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Crushed is more like it, that's how Brandon describes it, crushed by the force of the hit, not cut.

Does it say 500 feet in text?

No the text says that the horse fell in two pieces not that it is smashed to the ground.

It is an approximation like all the calculations we are doing. Based on a fairly realistic distance and the fact that she falls at an angle of about 45 degrees. If someone knows about ballistics, he can make more precise measurements.

[therunner he/him]

2 hours ago, Gisaku75 said:

There is no scene where Vin lifts something while using d-pewter.

At the end of the Luthadel siege, Staff's army is lining up to attack. They will be at a distance of at least 500 meters from the city. Vin makes a D-Steel jump and within moments reaches Staff and cuts him in two along with his horse, landing without a scratch while he is flaring pewter. I don't mean ballistics but I guess the highest point of a 500 meter parabola is about 150/200 meters 500/650 feet. Dalinar in shardplate after a fall of just 50 feet, held back by buildings, has lost all the pieces of the left arm and the rest of the plate is in pitiful condition. It is quite evident that pewter strengthens a body much more than a shardplate.

I meant my post as a reply to @Frustration, where he was comparing arguably greatest feat of d-pewter for which we have good numbers for force (crushing human head) to feat of shardplate.

Where did Dalinar fall 50 feet? I vagualy recollect it, but I was unable to track it down in book.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Crushed is more like it, that's how Brandon describes it, crushed by the force of the hit, not cut.

Does it say 500 feet in text?

10 minutes ago, Gisaku75 said:

No the text says that the horse fell in two pieces not that it is smashed to the ground.

It is an approximation like all the calculations we are doing. Based on a fairly realistic distance and the fact that she falls at an angle of about 45 degrees. If someone knows about ballistics, he can make more precise measurements.

In the book there are no numbers (it is on pages 705-706 of WoA, start of 55th chapter), either for angle of her jump or the distance between vanguard of koloss charge (her starting point) and Straff (her end point). We do not see the moment she pushed off (only through Straff's eyes), only her landing. Her flight took about ~6-8 seconds (my estimate  based on Straffs thoughts), which would put her maximum height at ~45-80 meters (assuming her landing position is at same height). Is the Straffs camp at some heightened position or not?

And yeah, the text says she bisected the horse with Koloss sword, into front half and back half. From the description the only way it makes sense to me is that she must have held the sword with its tip pointed down and she dragged it through both Straff and the horse (she hits Straff first and on the head, the only other way I can imagine that is if she fell straight down, but then would not make sense to describe what she did as "jump").