Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW

[therunner he/him]

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Mist on Scadrial is not made up of water like fog, nor does it act exactly like it is. For instance it doesn't cross boundaries nor is there ever a comment on the air being more humid. You still haven't addressed that energy of which light is a form, metal, and soul are the same in the Cosmere.

You mean like Stormlight is not made up of light, nor does it act like it? I mean, you cannot store light inside a gem for example, nor can you breathe it in.

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

After the perpendicularity closed Jasna found it increasingly more difficult to Soulcast. Her ability to seemingly soulcast effortlessly has to do with her skill, practice and perhaps her oath level. Still she finds it more difficult than she did during that battle because of the relative closeness or separation of the realms.

True, but my point was that Soulcasting without gems is possible even when perpendicularity is closed, and this points still stands.

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Blocks or disrupts what is the difference?

A large one. Disrupts implies that if you have a pool of Stormlight fueling reverse lashing or illusion and insert piece of Aluminum, the effect will get corrupted/stopped somehow. Blocking merely means that the effect will go on as usual, just that it will not reach through aluminum.

For example, lead blocks X-rays it does not disrupt them.

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Look if you increase your fortune 1 million times in just 5 compounds it would enable insane foresight or luck. that is just 5 times each additional time beyond that is 10 times more. At the very least that is a 1 million seconds (277 years) at twice you natural luck after 5 compounds. Another way to look at it is a long life time at 6 times your natural luck. At six compoundings 60 times then 600 times then 6,000 times, then 60,000 times, then 600,000 times, and finally 6 million times for a life time in a total of 10 compoundings even if the initial time spent storing is only 1 second.

Except that Fortune is not just straight up luck. And it might work differently than we would expect from the name (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2754), but you will ignore this WoB because it is paraphrased.

Either way, we have literally no information on what it would do so we will never reach a good conclusion. I think Cr-compounders have a shot at killing Radiant, but they would need good weapons and it is not guaranteed, so they do it 6/10 on average (averaged across all Oaths).

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

 Every form of compounding is about increasing a power or attribute by geometric scale tappable without loss in the time it took to store initially. Feruchemy is lossless so long as you don't compress the time.

Except for that one WoB per which Feruchemy has losses whenever you tap large amount of attribute and storing speed has no effect. However, you ignore it due to being paraphrased and I do not, so we will have to agree to disagree on that.

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Give me a link to where the cubes are described as ette metal? They are used as primers for ette metal fuel in the southern air ships, but they act more like nicrosil themselves. Nicrosil stores or enhances investiture.

In the post you are replying to I already said it is on Coppermind (under Ettmetal), so I do not know what more you want. However LewsTherinTelescope provided a quote to BoM which explicitly says so.

Also while nicrosil stores or enhances Investiture, it does so only when actively used by metalborn. On its own it does neither (barring some modifying effect in fabrial)

6 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

The Radiant needs to reach close range, and you have been assuming a lot of speed and maneuverability vs fire arms projectiles and explosives. I don't think we have concrete examples to support that assumption. Even subsonic bullets traveling 600 ft/sec have a velocity of 216,000 mph and those are slow bullets. So forming a shield or changing direction before impact is highly unlikely even for a Radiant. If the ammunition is aluminum the Radiant can afford a single hit either. Explosive or armor piercing rounds would also be a problem as would rapid fire weapons.

I have been only assuming speed and maneuverability granted by single lashing, which we have seen. Distance traveled under constant acceleration is d=1/2 * a * t^2, which you can invert to get time it takes to travel distance d under constant acceleration a, t = sqrt(2d/a). For d=50m and a=7 m/s^2 you will get t=3,77 s. So I slightly overstated my case, Radiant with Gravitation can move 50 meters under 4 seconds, and not 3 as I was saying. Under three lashings it would be close to 50 meters at 2 seconds.

Effective range of even modern grenade launchers is ~350 meters when trying to hit teams of people, and only 150 meters when trying to hit vehicles. Radiant with Gravitation is mobile enough (they can dismiss/redirect lashing at will, to quickly move in different directions) and fast enough to get in range without being hit by grenade, as they can cover 350 meters in around 10 seconds (under Single Lashing). And Era 2 Scadrial does not have grenade launchers of such ranges anyway.

The velocity of subsonic bullet in mph is off, it is only 400 mph (you forgot to convert from feet per hour to mph). Radiant could form shield before starting his charge and before any shot was taken, or even after a shot was taken if it did not kill them. I also don't think they could dodge bullets, but dodging grenades is a different matter. On that matter, after a few encounters with guns they could take the approach that it is good to advance in a random zig-zagging motion to lower the chance of being hit. (but I think here we are going into way too much detail with the speculation).

Scadrial currently has neither explosive nor armor piercing rounds as far as I know (and Shardshield would still easily resist them), and rapid fire weapon is a problem only if it catches Radiant unaware.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Suppressor fabrial would work if it were keyed to suppress cadmium. Though I am not sure how they would come up with one that did.

Suppressor fabrial don't need to be attuned to individual Surges, hence they do not need to be attuned to individual metals. Its all Harmonies investiture, one setting should be enough (or two if Preservation and Ruin are still sufficiently distinct).

To learn how, they could capture a couple of Mistings and Ferrings and experiment on them, A-pewter Misting and F-gold Ferrings would be easiest to experiment on, as they will both use their powers unconsciously if wounded sufficiently (and yikes, this is so unethical). Or they could try various settings and experiment in battles, plus wide band jammer exists, so they could try to suppreser everything that is not Surgebindin (but this might not be possible, or feasible).

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Your WoB contradicts the explicit description in the Coppermind, by Wax, and by Sazed. It is also a paraphrase of what the person thinks they asked and the response they think they received. In addition we don't have a recording to verify how accurate the person was. Even though it is included in WoB's we can't be sure it is exactly what Brandon said or what was actually asked.

Neither Wax nor Sazed are Compounders, and I do not think they ever comment on effect of storing speed at tapping. If they do I apologize, but please provide quotes where they do so.

While Coppermind says " when a Feruchemist is tapping an attribute at the same rate it was stored, they are able to get out exactly what they put in ", the WoB they source for this does not actually say that, although it might imply it.

In my opinion the newer WoB (2012 vs 2008), even when paraphrased is a better source for this.

And a question (I have kinda lost track of why are we discussing this point)., would the fact that they can tap losslessly actually change dynamics of combat with Radiant? F-steel will still burn them up when moving too fast (and I think even Steel Ferrings would move fast enough), F-Iron will still not make them resistant to damage, F-pewter will make them pile of muscles that can no longer move, etc.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

No I am no arbiter of objectivity only Brandon is in this instance. I am an arbiter of whether someone shares my subjective opinion, and grant that others have their own subjective opinions which I may or may not share mine in full or in part. The whole world was objectively flat according to everybody at the time, except that was actually a subjective fact taken as objective. When we see how Brandon treats these abilities in his books then we will know what is objective. His treatment of Iron Feruchemy from my perspective leaves room for supposition. Wax has a subjective opinion which from his experience is accurate, but is still limited to his restrictions on storing.

It really does not leave much room, Brandon himself (no paraphrasing or anything) says that F-Iron does not increase damage resistance, period. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/40/#e692)

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

 It is a fungus or lifeform living on the sand that converts the light into investiture on Taldain(?). That was from the intro to white sand in Arcanum Unbound.

Arcanum Unbounded actually does not say that lifeform converts sunlight to Investiture, in fact it says this

Quote

The Investiture beats down from the sky, and is absorbed by a microflora that grows like a lichen on the surface of the sand, giving it its brilliant white color (when fully Invested) or deep blackness (when that Investiture is depleted). (AU, pg.369-370)

i.e. the investiture comes from the sky, most likely from sunlight (the intro is not fully clear on this, it says that for years they assumed it but that it is not as simple, however that might refer to the fact that they assumed that only Dayside is invested, not to the source of Investiture itself). It then goes on to explain that this organism reacts to water, and that Sand Masters use water of their bodies to forge brief Connection to it to gain power from Spiritual Realm.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Here is a creative use of Rosharan weaponry. A shardbullwhip instead of a Shardsword. That could be interesting. Shard jet boots on dustbringers plate to fly with using Division. they might even be able to form Shard wings for stability.

Shards are made of godmetal, and so far that has been pretty unyielding, not very flexible. Making it from small linked parts would also not work, as the object must be one whole thing, not multiple small ones.

I am not sure how the 'Shard jet boots' should work? While Division does break molecular bonds, they do not have anything like rocket fuel to get enough thrust from that, so I do not think they could do that.

Shard wings, or shard flight stabilizers are an interesting idea, anyone under lashing would find it useful.

[Frustration he/him]

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Except that Fortune is not just straight up luck. And it might work differently than we would expect from the name (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2754), but you will ignore this WoB because it is paraphrased.

Except for that one WoB per which Feruchemy has losses whenever you tap large amount of attribute and storing speed has no effect. However, you ignore it due to being paraphrased and I do not, so we will have to agree to disagree on that.

More likely because he disagrees with them.

[BenduLuke he/him]

20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

And Stormlight on Roshar is not made up of photons like light, nor does it act exactly like it is.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying here, can you clarify what the question you're asking is?

BoM 22:

 

This is correct, though it did come very close to him, so it's not clear what the range is. But it definitely does not require contact.

What does it contradict?

According to Wax in BoM energy/light are investiture. So the right wavelength and rhythm of Light would act like anti-void or storm light. Not both at the same time.

Do you think anti-warlight would be dangerous to both Radians and Fused?

Thanks for the BoM 22 reference. It does contain ettmetal thanks for that. There must be more to it though because exposed ettmetal is very volatile. Even though has ettmetal it still projects leaching from a distance. That opens the speculation that with great enough magnitude (ettmetal certainly seems to increase magnitude) a leecher could do the same thing from a distance.

It contradicts what Wax, Khriss, and Sazed say about Feruchemy that you can tap something as fast as you stored it without loss, only when compressing the time to tap do you lose some storage to conversion regardless how fast it was stored or tapped. The WoB question quoted was very open, generic, and vague, so the response was also generally true, vague and potentially misleading as a result.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

You mean like Stormlight is not made up of light, nor does it act like it? I mean, you cannot store light inside a gem for example, nor can you breathe it in.

True, but my point was that Soulcasting without gems is possible even when perpendicularity is closed, and this points still stands.

A large one. Disrupts implies that if you have a pool of Stormlight fueling reverse lashing or illusion and insert piece of Aluminum, the effect will get corrupted/stopped somehow. Blocking merely means that the effect will go on as usual, just that it will not reach through aluminum.

For example, lead blocks X-rays it does not disrupt them.

Except that Fortune is not just straight up luck. And it might work differently than we would expect from the name (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33/#e2754), but you will ignore this WoB because it is paraphrased.

Either way, we have literally no information on what it would do so we will never reach a good conclusion. I think Cr-compounders have a shot at killing Radiant, but they would need good weapons and it is not guaranteed, so they do it 6/10 on average (averaged across all Oaths).

Except for that one WoB per which Feruchemy has losses whenever you tap large amount of attribute and storing speed has no effect. However, you ignore it due to being paraphrased and I do not, so we will have to agree to disagree on that.

In the post you are replying to I already said it is on Coppermind (under Ettmetal), so I do not know what more you want. However LewsTherinTelescope provided a quote to BoM which explicitly says so.

Also while nicrosil stores or enhances Investiture, it does so only when actively used by metalborn. On its own it does neither (barring some modifying effect in fabrial)

I have been only assuming speed and maneuverability granted by single lashing, which we have seen. Distance traveled under constant acceleration is d=1/2 * a * t^2, which you can invert to get time it takes to travel distance d under constant acceleration a, t = sqrt(2d/a). For d=50m and a=7 m/s^2 you will get t=3,77 s. So I slightly overstated my case, Radiant with Gravitation can move 50 meters under 4 seconds, and not 3 as I was saying. Under three lashings it would be close to 50 meters at 2 seconds.

Effective range of even modern grenade launchers is ~350 meters when trying to hit teams of people, and only 150 meters when trying to hit vehicles. Radiant with Gravitation is mobile enough (they can dismiss/redirect lashing at will, to quickly move in different directions) and fast enough to get in range without being hit by grenade, as they can cover 350 meters in around 10 seconds (under Single Lashing). And Era 2 Scadrial does not have grenade launchers of such ranges anyway.

The velocity of subsonic bullet in mph is off, it is only 400 mph (you forgot to convert from feet per hour to mph). Radiant could form shield before starting his charge and before any shot was taken, or even after a shot was taken if it did not kill them. I also don't think they could dodge bullets, but dodging grenades is a different matter. On that matter, after a few encounters with guns they could take the approach that it is good to advance in a random zig-zagging motion to lower the chance of being hit. (but I think here we are going into way too much detail with the speculation).

Scadrial currently has neither explosive nor armor piercing rounds as far as I know (and Shardshield would still easily resist them), and rapid fire weapon is a problem only if it catches Radiant unaware.

Suppressor fabrial don't need to be attuned to individual Surges, hence they do not need to be attuned to individual metals. Its all Harmonies investiture, one setting should be enough (or two if Preservation and Ruin are still sufficiently distinct).

To learn how, they could capture a couple of Mistings and Ferrings and experiment on them, A-pewter Misting and F-gold Ferrings would be easiest to experiment on, as they will both use their powers unconsciously if wounded sufficiently (and yikes, this is so unethical). Or they could try various settings and experiment in battles, plus wide band jammer exists, so they could try to suppreser everything that is not Surgebindin (but this might not be possible, or feasible).

Neither Wax nor Sazed are Compounders, and I do not think they ever comment on effect of storing speed at tapping. If they do I apologize, but please provide quotes where they do so.

While Coppermind says " when a Feruchemist is tapping an attribute at the same rate it was stored, they are able to get out exactly what they put in ", the WoB they source for this does not actually say that, although it might imply it.

In my opinion the newer WoB (2012 vs 2008), even when paraphrased is a better source for this.

And a question (I have kinda lost track of why are we discussing this point)., would the fact that they can tap losslessly actually change dynamics of combat with Radiant? F-steel will still burn them up when moving too fast (and I think even Steel Ferrings would move fast enough), F-Iron will still not make them resistant to damage, F-pewter will make them pile of muscles that can no longer move, etc.

It really does not leave much room, Brandon himself (no paraphrasing or anything) says that F-Iron does not increase damage resistance, period. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/40/#e692)

Arcanum Unbounded actually does not say that lifeform converts sunlight to Investiture, in fact it says this

i.e. the investiture comes from the sky, most likely from sunlight (the intro is not fully clear on this, it says that for years they assumed it but that it is not as simple, however that might refer to the fact that they assumed that only Dayside is invested, not to the source of Investiture itself). It then goes on to explain that this organism reacts to water, and that Sand Masters use water of their bodies to forge brief Connection to it to gain power from Spiritual Realm.

Shards are made of godmetal, and so far that has been pretty unyielding, not very flexible. Making it from small linked parts would also not work, as the object must be one whole thing, not multiple small ones.

I am not sure how the 'Shard jet boots' should work? While Division does break molecular bonds, they do not have anything like rocket fuel to get enough thrust from that, so I do not think they could do that.

Shard wings, or shard flight stabilizers are an interesting idea, anyone under lashing would find it useful.

You can store light in sand though in the Cosmere. Plus the light might be escaping because of impurities and imperfections.

I never said that Radiants couldn't soulcast without gems. That brings up what you might make a fabrial from to block Cadmium allomancy or or in other words create a cadmium suppressor? That would be a creative use of Rosharan Magic.

Aluminum causes metal and power to vanish (allomancy and hemulurgy respectively). It doesn't leech, they are just gone. So it does disrupt, but it also blocks which still seems to me to be a form of disruption. In fabrials it blocks or disrupts certain vectors depending on how it is placed. It can also disrupt feruchemical and radiant healing as well as pewter. These effects are all in its article on the Coppermind. It also disrupts and reverses withering. It seems that it depends on how it is used whether it simply blocks or disrupts.

I will grant Brandon is squishy on fortune. We have it described as luck and as foresight, but he has been vague and evasive on the subject. With enough luck or foresight you would have the weapons, equipment, allies, and skills you need for any situation. Compounding has the potential to supply that.

See my response on that one WoB and ettmetal above. I asked for the link because I was drawing a blank on where to find the cubes make up. It does have ettmetal, but likely isn't ettmetal since that would be way to volatile.

Sorry man with melee weapon is at a severe disadvantage to man with gun even when man with sword can fly especially when man with gun may have his own physically enhancing abilities. The Radiant might not even reach grenade range before having to retreat or die given the potential variety of ammunition and gun available.

Sazed comments on many feruchemical powers including speed (for one he said it was difficult to store) and goes into detail on storing and tapping various metals. Wax comments on storing and tapping weight. He usually goes around at 75% storing the other 25%. In addition he stores extra weight when he travels by coin. His feats of massive tapping often use thousands of hours of storing in mere moments but those are rare about 1 per book. Wax is a riddle because he says that he gains no additional resistance, but time and again it is implied that he does when he taps massive weight. It is explicitly described that his crush resistance changes because of the weight he taps particularly in the train car scene. That is not explained away by some spiritual weight place holder, it is a physical affect.

Yes the ability to tap losslessly for an Iron compounder would change the dynamics of combat with a Radiant. Just a side note Brandon couldn't think of a reason why Wax wouldn't be bullet resistant when he tapped weight which is why he said it doesn't resist penetration, but if different parts of the body change density at different rates then unless a bullet hit a bone (likely the most density increase) penetration resistance could be almost nothing until very extreme weights were achieved. Water in the body would never change density. Muscle density might eventually make a noticeable difference in places where structural support was needed. Anyway with increased mass and density there would be a proportional amount of increased strength in both body and more particularly allomancy enabling incredible stability and massively powerful strikes. Mostly though we are discussing compounding Iron as an example of compounding generally with something physical to relate to. Many abilities are more esoteric and thus hard to nail down. What would it even mean to have 1 million times more connection, mental speed, investiture or determination? We have also tried fortune, but as you pointed out what does that even mean either. Any of these in sufficient quantity might have an affect in a battle with a Radiant, but that affect would be hard to define. Wakefulness so you are always ready for when the Radiant is off guard even if it is only once per year.

Yeah for humans on Taldain it is complicated to access investiture. It comes from the sunlight to the organism in the sand then to humans.

Shard whip would be a solid flexable thing like a long piece of invested rubber. Division might act to create thrust if properly controlled. They might need fuel or might work like ram jets creating changes in pressure. I am not sure that summoning a shard means it needs to be rigid. I could just see a whip wielding winddancer flicking fused out of the air from yards away. No telling how long the whip could be.

Does living plate need to be heavy? Kal's plate is made out of wind spren for goodness sake. Did they suddenly take on allot of mass when they became plate? Living plate seems to act more like a force shield than actual armor. If the living shardplate isn't heavy then edgedancer might be able to glide at times with shardwings.

Like I said a conflict between Rosharan's and Scadrian's could be far more interesting than just near invulnerable armor, magic swords and rapid healing on one side, and clandestine attacks from cover or dark on the other. Up until now I have been trying to show that armor is not invulnerable, the swords are not the end all weapon, and the healing is not unbeatable on Roshars side by proposing potentially possible and often extreme Scadrian counters.

[Frustration he/him]

1 minute ago, BenduLuke said:

According to Wax in BoM energy/light are investiture. So the right wavelength and rhythm of Light would act like anti-void or storm light. Not both at the same time.

Everything is investiture, just like everything is energy.

2 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Do you think anti-warlight would be dangerous to both Radians and Fused?

War isn't a single shard, Harmony is.

2 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

It contradicts what Wax, Khriss, and Sazed say about Feruchemy that you can tap something as fast as you stored it without loss, only when compressing the time to tap do you lose some storage to conversion regardless how fast it was stored or tapped. The WoB question quoted was very open, generic, and vague, so the response was also generally true, vague and potentially misleading as a result.

Quotes?

3 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

You can store light in sand though in the Cosmere. Plus the light might be escaping because of impurities and imperfections.

Any kinetic investiture will charge sand.

4 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Aluminum causes metal and power to vanish (allomancy and hemulurgy respectively). It doesn't leech, they are just gone. So it does disrupt, but it also blocks which still seems to me to be a form of disruption. In fabrials it blocks or disrupts certain vectors depending on how it is placed. It can also disrupt feruchemical and radiant healing as well as pewter. These effects are all in its article on the Coppermind. It also disrupts and reverses withering. It seems that it depends on how it is used whether it simply blocks or disrupts.

Steel doesn't push on things, aluminums allomantic and hemalurgic uses, are not passive powers it has.

5 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I will grant Brandon is squishy on fortune. We have it described as luck and as foresight, but he has been vague and evasive on the subject. With enough luck or foresight you would have the weapons, equipment, allies, and skills you need for any situation. Compounding has the potential to supply that.

We have multiple uses of foresight, but maybe, maybe one on luck, and that's a big maybe.

9 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Sorry man with melee weapon is at a severe disadvantage to man with gun even when man with sword can fly especially when man with gun may have his own physically enhancing abilities. The Radiant might not even reach grenade range before having to retreat or die given the potential variety of ammunition and gun available.

No bullet Scadrial has could get through a shardshield.

10 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Sazed comments on many feruchemical powers including speed (for one he said it was difficult to store) and goes into detail on storing and tapping various metals. Wax comments on storing and tapping weight. He usually goes around at 75% storing the other 25%. In addition he stores extra weight when he travels by coin. His feats of massive tapping often use thousands of hours of storing in mere moments but those are rare about 1 per book. Wax is a riddle because he says that he gains no additional resistance, but time and again it is implied that he does when he taps massive weight. It is explicitly described that his crush resistance changes because of the weight he taps particularly in the train car scene. That is not explained away by some spiritual weight place holder, it is a physical affect.

That is not true, what you are saying contradicts both Brandon and the text, if you have a quote that says otherwise I'm happy to here it but you are wrong.

11 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Shard whip would be a solid flexable thing like a long piece of invested rubber. Division might act to create thrust if properly controlled. They might need fuel or might work like ram jets creating changes in pressure. I am not sure that summoning a shard means it needs to be rigid. I could just see a whip wielding winddancer flicking fused out of the air from yards away. No telling how long the whip could be.

Shardblades barely bend at all

13 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Does living plate need to be heavy? Kal's plate is made out of wind spren for goodness sake. Did they suddenly take on allot of mass when they became plate? Living plate seems to act more like a force shield than actual armor. If the living shardplate isn't heavy then edgedancer might be able to glide at times with shardwings.

Shards can touch the physical world when spren can't

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

According to Wax in BoM energy/light are investiture. So the right wavelength and rhythm of Light would act like anti-void or storm light. Not both at the same time.

Wax says no such thing, or which moment are you talking about? When holding BoM he thinks that "Metals, minds, men, all the same substance", but he makes no comment on light. And again, you cannot just create Investiture, per author.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Do you think anti-warlight would be dangerous to both Radians and Fused?

I would assume not, as it is different kind of investiture, not a literal blend.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Thanks for the BoM 22 reference. It does contain ettmetal thanks for that. There must be more to it though because exposed ettmetal is very volatile. Even though has ettmetal it still projects leaching from a distance. That opens the speculation that with great enough magnitude (ettmetal certainly seems to increase magnitude) a leecher could do the same thing from a distance.

Or it is a function of the godmetal, and leecher could never achieve such a feat alone.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

It contradicts what Wax, Khriss, and Sazed say about Feruchemy that you can tap something as fast as you stored it without loss, only when compressing the time to tap do you lose some storage to conversion regardless how fast it was stored or tapped. The WoB question quoted was very open, generic, and vague, so the response was also generally true, vague and potentially misleading as a result.

Khriss never comments on such a thing, and neither does Wax. Sazed might have, but it would be nice of you to provide some quotes instead of your word.

Also since neither of the three are compounders, they would never encounter scenario when they can store large amounts of attribute at once, i.e. they would never notice the difference. The WoB in question (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/153/#e2803) is everything but vague, open, or generic; the question was " Does the loss during the withdrawal of large amounts of attribute depend on the rate of original storage? " this is a very specific question what is vague about it?

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

You can store light in sand though in the Cosmere. Plus the light might be escaping because of impurities and imperfections.

 

Not light,  investiture. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/324/#e9288) (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/5/#e3233)

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

That brings up what you might make a fabrial from to block Cadmium allomancy or or in other words create a cadmium suppressor? That would be a creative use of Rosharan Magic.

You mean like the suppressors I was talking about on multiple occasions here, on this very page for example?

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Aluminum causes metal and power to vanish (allomancy and hemulurgy respectively). It doesn't leech, they are just gone. So it does disrupt, but it also blocks which still seems to me to be a form of disruption. In fabrials it blocks or disrupts certain vectors depending on how it is placed. It can also disrupt feruchemical and radiant healing as well as pewter. These effects are all in its article on the Coppermind. It also disrupts and reverses withering. It seems that it depends on how it is used whether it simply blocks or disrupts.

No, only A-aluminum does that, and only when burned by allomancer. Aluminum does not disrupt Investiture, it blocks its flow and it cannot be acted upon it by Invested processes. You keep mixing up what Aluminum does within Metallic arts (i.e. magical system) with properties of Aluminum within Cosmere in general. Aluminum is useless against withering unless you are Allomancer (even Ferring would have trouble, because his power does not remove investiture).

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

I will grant Brandon is squishy on fortune. We have it described as luck and as foresight, but he has been vague and evasive on the subject. With enough luck or foresight you would have the weapons, equipment, allies, and skills you need for any situation. Compounding has the potential to supply that.

Not necessarily, you can trap people in situations where they cannot win. And if you literally cannot get what you need to win, you will still lose, F-Chromium is not wish granting genie.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Sorry man with melee weapon is at a severe disadvantage to man with gun even when man with sword can fly especially when man with gun may have his own physically enhancing abilities. The Radiant might not even reach grenade range before having to retreat or die given the potential variety of ammunition and gun available.

Man in powered armor (Brandon's words) with shapeshifting indestructible gun/shield, moving tens of meters in seconds is at a disadvantage against a guy with a gun? The guy with gun has range, that is it, and the gun has to have aluminum bullets, otherwise it is far weaker against Radiants. And you neglect ways Radiant can circumvent range disadvantage.

• Radiant with gravitation could drop from above faster than Metalborn could react (they could fall 1 km in 10 seconds under 4 lashings) and they can prepare spren into a shield so that when they are falling there is nothing to hit.
• Radiant with Transportation would not need to traverse battleground, they would simply pop out of Cognitive right on top of Metalborn, completely negating any range advantage.
• Radiants with Abrasion would have to approach on foot, but could still use spren as shield, and any non-aluminum sharpnel/ammunition would slide right off.
• Radiants with Illumination could throw up Illusions and make hidden approach ( Lightweavers could then soulcast weapons away, or plug barrels with soulcasted metal)
• Stonewards and Bondsmiths would have greatest trouble approaching a guy with gun, but Stonewards could simply make a fortification and then move it with themselves (as they have Cohesion and Tension) and Bondsmiths are not the most combat oriented (although who know what they could do with Connection manipulation)

And Scadrial currently does not have particularly large variety of ammo or guns, they have mostly revolvers, rifles and some rudimentary machine guns, and only one gunsmith makes specialized ammo.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Sazed comments on many feruchemical powers including speed (for one he said it was difficult to store) and goes into detail on storing and tapping various metals. Wax comments on storing and tapping weight. He usually goes around at 75% storing the other 25%. In addition he stores extra weight when he travels by coin. His feats of massive tapping often use thousands of hours of storing in mere moments but those are rare about 1 per book. Wax is a riddle because he says that he gains no additional resistance, but time and again it is implied that he does when he taps massive weight. It is explicitly described that his crush resistance changes because of the weight he taps particularly in the train car scene. That is not explained away by some spiritual weight place holder, it is a physical affect.

He gains no resistance, author himself said so and Wax himself said so. He withstands his increased mass, because Feruchemy in general protects against its own effects, but that is it.

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Yes the ability to tap losslessly for an Iron compounder would change the dynamics of combat with a Radiant. Just a side note Brandon couldn't think of a reason why Wax wouldn't be bullet resistant when he tapped weight which is why he said it doesn't resist penetration, but if different parts of the body change density at different rates then unless a bullet hit a bone (likely the most density increase) penetration resistance could be almost nothing until very extreme weights were achieved. Water in the body would never change density. Muscle density might eventually make a noticeable difference in places where structural support was needed. Anyway with increased mass and density there would be a proportional amount of increased strength in both body and more particularly allomancy enabling incredible stability and massively powerful strikes. Mostly though we are discussing compounding Iron as an example of compounding generally with something physical to relate to. Many abilities are more esoteric and thus hard to nail down. What would it even mean to have 1 million times more connection, mental speed, investiture or determination? We have also tried fortune, but as you pointed out what does that even mean either. Any of these in sufficient quantity might have an affect in a battle with a Radiant, but that affect would be hard to define. Wakefulness so you are always ready for when the Radiant is off guard even if it is only once per year.

As you say yourself, author himself states that tapping weight does not increase damage resistance.  As you are the one who says it would make a difference in combat, maybe you can come up with reasons why. But of the bat these would be definitely useless in direct combat

• F-Tin, F-copper, F-Bronze, F-Cadmium, F-bendalloy, F-Electrum

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Shard whip would be a solid flexable thing like a long piece of invested rubber. Division might act to create thrust if properly controlled. They might need fuel or might work like ram jets creating changes in pressure. I am not sure that summoning a shard means it needs to be rigid. I could just see a whip wielding winddancer flicking fused out of the air from yards away. No telling how long the whip could be.
 

Except that godmetal of Shards is never shown as being flexible, and in fact is only ever shown as unyielding. On size of the whip, I think there was some WoB on limits of size for spren-things, but I cannot find it at the moment

How could Division act to create thrust without proper propellant? Division just breaks chemical bonds, without good fuel you are not going to be flying around. And ramjets only work if you are already moving at around ~170m/s, so that would not work at all. (also Division would not let you change pressure, that would be Adhesion)

1 hour ago, BenduLuke said:

Does living plate need to be heavy? Kal's plate is made out of wind spren for goodness sake. Did they suddenly take on allot of mass when they became plate? Living plate seems to act more like a force shield than actual armor. If the living shardplate isn't heavy then edgedancer might be able to glide at times with shardwings.

As far as we know yes it has to be, after all if Jasnah could have made her plate lighter she would have (especially at the end of battle), even if she made it half as heavy it would be useful.

They got their mass from all the Investiture that manifested, just like sprenblade has much more mass than a regular form of spren would suggest.

Edited May 14, 2021 by therunner
spelling

[bmcclure7]

On 12/8/2020 at 3:34 PM, BenduLuke said:

If either knew about the abilities the other had, the advantage goes to the that one. Without foreknowledge the versatility and ranged abilities of the full mistborn may give them the edge particularly if they use Wax's trick of attaching aluminum or some other hard alomantically inert material to an alomantically active metal. Attach a gem stone to the aluminum/metal dart and you have investiture removing darts or edged discs at rifle speeds. Both Vin and Kelsior could handle many at once. Of course Kaladin might soon be imitating the projectile approach once he sees coinshot's and lurcher's in action.

So in my opinion Mistborn vs Radiant is not cut and dried and the advantage goes to the situation and location that the battle takes place. Besides I think the Radiants, Twinborn, and Fused will be fighting Trell in the not to distant future alongside one another. It seems as if in order for Radiants and Fused to fight on Scadrial then need to snap or use hemalurgy, but the Mistborn need only metal of which some are in abundance to fight on Roshar and they may be even more enhanced with a bond to a Spren.

who needs a rifle when you have a coin shot?

 

We know from the readings that there will be scadrial v roshar at least in era 4 maybe before that.

[BenduLuke he/him]

23 hours ago, therunner said:

Wax says no such thing, or which moment are you talking about? When holding BoM he thinks that "Metals, minds, men, all the same substance", but he makes no comment on light. And again, you cannot just create Investiture, per author.

I would assume not, as it is different kind of investiture, not a literal blend.

Or it is a function of the godmetal, and leecher could never achieve such a feat alone.

Khriss never comments on such a thing, and neither does Wax. Sazed might have, but it would be nice of you to provide some quotes instead of your word.

Also since neither of the three are compounders, they would never encounter scenario when they can store large amounts of attribute at once, i.e. they would never notice the difference. The WoB in question (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/153/#e2803) is everything but vague, open, or generic; the question was " Does the loss during the withdrawal of large amounts of attribute depend on the rate of original storage? " this is a very specific question what is vague about it?

Not light,  investiture. (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/324/#e9288) (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/5/#e3233)

You mean like the suppressors I was talking about on multiple occasions here, on this very page for example?

No, only A-aluminum does that, and only when burned by allomancer. Aluminum does not disrupt Investiture, it blocks its flow and it cannot be acted upon it by Invested processes. You keep mixing up what Aluminum does within Metallic arts (i.e. magical system) with properties of Aluminum within Cosmere in general. Aluminum is useless against withering unless you are Allomancer (even Ferring would have trouble, because his power does not remove investiture).

Not necessarily, you can trap people in situations where they cannot win. And if you literally cannot get what you need to win, you will still lose, F-Chromium is not wish granting genie.

Man in powered armor (Brandon's words) with shapeshifting indestructible gun/shield, moving tens of meters in seconds is at a disadvantage against a guy with a gun? The guy with gun has range, that is it, and the gun has to have aluminum bullets, otherwise it is far weaker against Radiants. And you neglect ways Radiant can circumvent range disadvantage.

• Radiant with gravitation could drop from above faster than Metalborn could react (they could fall 1 km in 10 seconds under 4 lashings) and they can prepare spren into a shield so that when they are falling there is nothing to hit.
• Radiant with Transportation would not need to traverse battleground, they would simply pop out of Cognitive right on top of Metalborn, completely negating any range advantage.
• Radiants with Abrasion would have to approach on foot, but could still use spren as shield, and any non-aluminum sharpnel/ammunition would slide right off.
• Radiants with Illumination could throw up Illusions and make hidden approach ( Lightweavers could then soulcast weapons away, or plug barrels with soulcasted metal)
• Stonewards and Bondsmiths would have greatest trouble approaching a guy with gun, but Stonewards could simply make a fortification and then move it with themselves (as they have Cohesion and Tension) and Bondsmiths are not the most combat oriented (although who know what they could do with Connection manipulation)

And Scadrial currently does not have particularly large variety of ammo or guns, they have mostly revolvers, rifles and some rudimentary machine guns, and only one gunsmith makes specialized ammo.

He gains no resistance, author himself said so and Wax himself said so. He withstands his increased mass, because Feruchemy in general protects against its own effects, but that is it.

As you say yourself, author himself states that tapping weight does not increase damage resistance.  As you are the one who says it would make a difference in combat, maybe you can come up with reasons why. But of the bat these would be definitely useless in direct combat

• F-Tin, F-copper, F-Bronze, F-Cadmium, F-bendalloy, F-Electrum

Except that godmetal of Shards is never shown as being flexible, and in fact is only ever shown as unyielding. On size of the whip, I think there was some WoB on limits of size for spren-things, but I cannot find it at the moment

How could Division act to create thrust without proper propellant? Division just breaks chemical bonds, without good fuel you are not going to be flying around. And ramjets only work if you are already moving at around ~170m/s, so that would not work at all. (also Division would not let you change pressure, that would be Adhesion)

As far as we know yes it has to be, after all if Jasnah could have made her plate lighter she would have (especially at the end of battle), even if she made it half as heavy it would be useful.

They got their mass from all the Investiture that manifested, just like sprenblade has much more mass than a regular form of spren would suggest.

it is actually very difficult for me to provide quotes from the books since I don't actually own any and I listen to them not actually read them. So take that for what it is worth. Wax talks about walking around storing investiture, but he rarely taps it at the rate he stored it. He usually compressed it does quick store taps during steel pushes. For that matter most people seem to compress the time when they tap, while spending days, hours, weeks, months or, or even years storing. I think Khriss talks about it in the Ars archanum at the end of book mistborn books.

This is a better WoB on Feruchemy. Though when Brandon says compound he is referring to compressing time as you may note by the context.

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

Yes and they are developing haze killer rounds, and explosives and have very advanced metallurgy which will benefit further swift advancements in both projectiles and guns among other things.

Drop from above. they need to get above first and still potentially survive a hail of large caliber rounds.

Radiants don't yet have the ability to pop back out of the cognative at will and if there are troops in the cognative in that area the radiants are even more vulnerable.

Land mines and artillery could cause complications for earth bound Radiants even with their sheilds.

copper and bronze can counter illusions and land mines and traps don't notice them.

Stonewards if they traveled far enough underground might evade traps, mines, and artillery, but if not a barrier would be of limited use. Keep your Bondsmith back for fuel and protection.

I am sorry I know Brandon says he doesn't gain any piercing resistance, but he also doesn't end up with scratches, scrapes, cuts, and splinters when he crashes through floors which seems to imply that he has yet to achieve a density that has noticeable resistance to high velocity piercing damage like bullets and perhaps only with insane weight would there even start to be. Mostly only Bones and muscles would even need any increased density to handle the increased weight.

F-Tin, Look outs and snipers and spies.

F-copper, Scientist and Researcher.

F-Bronze, Watchmen and sentries. Potentially assasins since they can wait until just the right moment when the enemy is unaware.

F-Cadmium, Frog men able to attack from water or within poison clouds.

F-bendalloy, great behind the lines soldiers since they need no supply line. Saboteurs. able to travel very light and through desolate terain.

F-Electrum. Think Die hard. soldiers who never quit no matter what so long as they live.

Syl seemed to think she could become many different things but being rigid might be required. If not a shardwhip would be cool. Maybe the windspren could do it.

I don't remember Jasna shaking the ground when she fought in Shardplate, but I could have missed that. Dead plate is certainly is.

@bmcclure7 I think your right era 4 scadrial era 2 roshar.

Edited May 15, 2021 by BenduLuke

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

This is a better WoB on Feruchemy. Though when Brandon says compound he is referring to compressing time as you may note by the context.

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

You will also note he says you cannont become as weak as zero people meaning that what he is refering to is amounts of a trait that would not experience a loss of power.

3 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Drop from above. they need to get above first and still potentially survive a hail of large caliber rounds.

Very easy to do, like thinking easy.

3 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Radiants don't yet have the ability to pop back out of the cognative at will and if there are troops in the cognative in that area the radiants are even more vulnerable.

And Scadrial does not yet have explosive or armor piercing rounds, nor widly availible access to the CR.

And let's be frank Scadrians will not control the CR even on Scadrial without much easier access to it.

5 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Land mines and artillery could cause complications for earth bound Radiants even with their sheilds.

But a Thunderclast wouldn't even notice

5 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I am sorry I know Brandon says he doesn't gain any piercing resistance, but he also doesn't end up with scratches, scrapes, cuts, and splinters when he crashes through floors which seems to imply that he has yet to achieve a density that has noticeable resistance to high velocity piercing damage like bullets and perhaps only with insane weight would there even start to be. Mostly only Bones and muscles would even need any increased density to handle the increased weight.

Rule of Cool.

[The Technovore he/him]

Look, at this point, if we're comparing magics, I'd say that most Radiants still beat most Metallic Artists. Stormlight gives F-Gold and A-Pewter all in one (not to mention F-Cadmium, F-Electrum, F-Bendalloy, and a touch of F-Steel), just on its own. That means that in a straight wrestling match, no holds barred, any given Radiant--heck, even just a squire is equivalent to a very potent Twinborn combo. Then you add in the power armor that's going to make life for nearly every Twinborn Combo except pewter and iron compounders miserable (I'd love to see an Iron Compounder just sit on a Radiant and squeeze the life out of them lol. Assuming they survive the insta-kill sword long enough to get close). Then you add in the Surges that can do everything from encasing the Radiant in reinforced stone, to disintegrating a Twinborn at a touch, to letting the Radiant fly in ways Vin and Kelsier could only dream of doing. Hand-to-hand combat, (without the insta-kill sword or guns, just straight fists and magic powers), Radiants smoke most if not all Scadrian Magic users. I'm sorry, just a fact.

Add in weapons and tools, and things dip somewhat in the Scadrian's favor. Guns are a great equalizer, especially the nice repeating ones that can just drain a Radiant of stormlight as they keep putting holes in them. You have the ettmetal cubes, the medallions, maybe some good ol' fashioned explosives, you can lay a nice trap for the enemy or just overwhelm them with gunpowder and lead. Except now the Radiant has their insta-kill sword, which means that just one mistake and the Scadrian's dead (except for F-Gold and F-Aluminum maybe). But even with all those weapons, it's going to be just as difficult to kill the Radiant as it would be to kill an A-Pewter/F-Gold Twinborn, assuming you get through the armor. The name of that game is still, frustratingly, attrition and survival until they run out of fuel.

If you inflate things to "All of Scadrial" versus "All of Roshar", it dips even further into Scadrial's favor. 1-in-200 people being a Misting for a population of 15 million (give or take 3 million) in the Elendel basin means almost 100k (75k?) Allomancers, compared to Roshar fielding only 2k Windrunners when nearly every living spren was bonded. Windrunners were one of the more numerous Orders, but even if we're super generous and give each Order 2k Radiants, they're outnumbered 7-to-1. Add in that Scadrial should already have or will soon have repeating rifles (semi-autos) that makes any given soldier a Coinshot. Add in that we don't know the numbers for Allomancers or Feruchemists on SoScad or on SoScad's population. You wouldn't be able to rely on Twinborn for your army, but boy does Scadrial have the numbers. 

If you have a situation where all 10k (20k if you're super generous) Radiants and the some 20k or so Fused go up against Scadrial, and then Harmony pulls the "Snap people with mists" thing and make 16% of the population Allomancers... anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.2 million Allomancers just from NoScad. Honor isn't currently capable of making new Radiant Spren, so even if Scadrial has no ability to actually hurt the spren, even if Radiants keep getting replaced after they're killed--they'd still be overwhelmed just on pure numbers. A Scadrian invasion (ignoring the complications involved just getting them to Roshar) would be very casualty-heavy, but successful, because Shardbearers (The Surgebinders and Thunderclasts) can't hold ground.

Radiants are by far the more potent and more powerful magic user. I can see why some would think that Allomancers and Feruchemists should be able to stand up to them--in Era 2, they're described by everyone as though they're gods, spinning through the mists and flaring with power with fantastically romantic imagery and prose. But Scadrial doesn't have deadShards as a comparison for power. Scadrial doesn't have gigantic building-sized crab monsters threatening the Elendel Basin. Radiants on Roshar don't get as much awe and respect for a few reasons in-narrative, (they're new, the history books despise them, these people live with Highstorms blowing in each week so it's not like they haven't seen awesome power before), but just because the prose doesn't describe them in such fabulous terms doesn't mean they're not a whole tier more than Metallic Artists are.

Edited May 15, 2021 by The Technovore

[Frustration he/him]

5 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

If you have a situation where all 10k (20k if you're super generous) Radiants and the some 20k or so Fused go up against Scadrial, and then Harmony pulls the "Snap people with mists" thing and make 16% of the population Allomancers... anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.2 million Allomancers just from NoScad. Honor isn't currently capable of making new Radiant Spren, so even if Scadrial has no ability to actually hurt the spren, even if Radiants keep getting replaced after they're killed--they'd still be overwhelmed just on pure numbers. 

Stormfather can though.

6 minutes ago, The Technovore said:

If you have a situation where all 10k (20k if you're super generous) Radiants and the some 20k or so Fused go up against Scadrial, and then Harmony pulls the "Snap people with mists" thing and make 16% of the population Allomancers... anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.2 million Allomancers just from NoScad. Honor isn't currently capable of making new Radiant Spren, so even if Scadrial has no ability to actually hurt the spren, even if Radiants keep getting replaced after they're killed--they'd still be overwhelmed just on pure numbers. 

Scadrials population is a lot smaller than Roshar's.

So.Scadrial's metalborn are a lot rarer.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Stormfather can though.

Not even just Stormfather, Radiant spren themselves can make more, and most of the time do (Stormfather himself hasn't made any in millennia and even then didn't make many, it's pretty much all been the spren making more on their own).

[Frustration he/him]

Just now, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Not even just Stormfather, Radiant spren themselves can make more, and most of the time do (Stormfather himself hasn't made any in millennia and even then didn't make many, it's pretty much all been the spren making more on their own).

Yes but spren seem to need to go somewhere special while it's implied to be something the Stormfather can just, do.

[The Technovore he/him]

...huh!

2 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Not even just Stormfather, Radiant spren themselves can make more, and most of the time do (Stormfather himself hasn't made any in millennia and even then didn't make many, it's pretty much all been the spren making more on their own).

 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Yes but spren seem to need to go somewhere special while it's implied to be something the Stormfather can just, do.

Well then, I guess in times of emergency, Roshar can just crank those numbers up. Interesting. Welp. Scadrial's screwed lol.

[therunner he/him]

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

it is actually very difficult for me to provide quotes from the books since I don't actually own any and I listen to them not actually read them. So take that for what it is worth. Wax talks about walking around storing investiture, but he rarely taps it at the rate he stored it. He usually compressed it does quick store taps during steel pushes. For that matter most people seem to compress the time when they tap, while spending days, hours, weeks, months or, or even years storing. I think Khriss talks about it in the Ars archanum at the end of book mistborn books.

This is a better WoB on Feruchemy. Though when Brandon says compound he is referring to compressing time as you may note by the context.

 

Quote

Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008)

 

OK, understood. I think I recall Wax thinking about what you are saying, but I do not think it is evidence against "tapping large amounts always incurs penalty", since he has no experience doing so.

I looked through all the Mistborn Ars Arcana, and Khriss never talks about mechanics of tapping faster than storing, or losses due to tapping large amounts.

I am aware of this WoB, and I do not think it necessarily invalidates the other one, as it is both older and does not address the issue directly.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Yes and they are developing haze killer rounds, and explosives and have very advanced metallurgy which will benefit further swift advancements in both projectiles and guns among other things.

We do not know how exactly they will develop, and if we allow speculative future developments to Scadrial we should give the same allowance to Roshar for their fabrial tech.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Drop from above. they need to get above first and still potentially survive a hail of large caliber rounds.

They can get above trivially, and spren shield would protect them from anything short of other shards/nightblood. And since they would be dropping only 10 seconds or less, they would be extremely difficult to hit.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Radiants don't yet have the ability to pop back out of the cognative at will and if there are troops in the cognative in that area the radiants are even more vulnerable.

Those with Surge of Transportation do, if they have enough Stormlight to do it. Getting into Cognitive is relatively easy, getting out is a bit more difficult (or requires more knowledge) (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13196), but it is possible.

Also Scadrial does not have access to Cognitive or any ability to travel back and forth, so they would not have soldiers there.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Land mines and artillery could cause complications for earth bound Radiants even with their sheilds.

Since when does Scadrial have land mines? And when would they have time to prepare the field with them?

Artillery would be problematic, but they can be destroyed easily (Lashed boulder/Soulcasting) and Scadrial cannot replace them that easily.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

copper and bronze can counter illusions and land mines and traps don't notice them.

Only bronze not copper, but no combination of Twinborn you proposed had either anyway. And Lightweaving is 'quiet' as those alerter spren do not notice it, so it might be difficult to detect even with bronze.

And why are you assuming Scadrial had time to prepare the battlefield?

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I am sorry I know Brandon says he doesn't gain any piercing resistance, but he also doesn't end up with scratches, scrapes, cuts, and splinters when he crashes through floors which seems to imply that he has yet to achieve a density that has noticeable resistance to high velocity piercing damage like bullets and perhaps only with insane weight would there even start to be. Mostly only Bones and muscles would even need any increased density to handle the increased weight.

Rule of Cool, as a lot of protagonists in books don't get 'small' injuries at all. And authorial intent is still what it is, F-iron does not impart damage resistance.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

F-Tin, Look outs and snipers and spies.

F-copper, Scientist and Researcher.

F-Bronze, Watchmen and sentries. Potentially assasins since they can wait until just the right moment when the enemy is unaware.

F-Cadmium, Frog men able to attack from water or within poison clouds.

F-bendalloy, great behind the lines soldiers since they need no supply line. Saboteurs. able to travel very light and through desolate terain.

F-Electrum. Think Die hard. soldiers who never quit no matter what so long as they live.

So you agree with me that all these are useless in direct fight with Radiant? Also F-bronze compounder would not be much better as assassin than a normal person, they just don't have to sleep, and you can easily detect them with basic lifesense. F-bendalloy only need no food and water, they still get sick/wounded/need items to sabotage etc, it is useful but not game-changingly so.

And all of the above Compounders are 1 in 10-20 million rare, so not soldiers but only a soldier.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Syl seemed to think she could become many different things but being rigid might be required. If not a shardwhip would be cool. Maybe the windspren could do it.

Syl can become a lot of things, so long as they are not too large, and they will retain the same material properties as Shardblade. Lesser spren do not seem capable of forming weapons.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

I don't remember Jasna shaking the ground when she fought in Shardplate, but I could have missed that. Dead plate is certainly is.

I don't think even when Adolin fights in plate at end of WoR is the ground described as shaking. Nevertheless arrows bounce off her, implying both damage resistance of plate and that plate is sufficiently heavy that the collision effectively imparts no momentum to Jasnah.

Nice analysis @The Technovore, a few points others did not mention I think.

6 hours ago, The Technovore said:

Add in weapons and tools, and things dip somewhat in the Scadrian's favor. Guns are a great equalizer, especially the nice repeating ones that can just drain a Radiant of stormlight as they keep putting holes in them. You have the ettmetal cubes, the medallions, maybe some good ol' fashioned explosives, you can lay a nice trap for the enemy or just overwhelm them with gunpowder and lead. Except now the Radiant has their insta-kill sword, which means that just one mistake and the Scadrian's dead (except for F-Gold and F-Aluminum maybe). But even with all those weapons, it's going to be just as difficult to kill the Radiant as it would be to kill an A-Pewter/F-Gold Twinborn, assuming you get through the armor. The name of that game is still, frustratingly, attrition and survival until they run out of fuel.

I think you are neglecting more general tools Roshar could bring to bear, namely various fabrials. With alerters you could make traps that trigger only when someone starts using magic, with suppresors you could negate ettmetal cubes and Metallic arts within certain radius, half-shards would be good as 'basic' bullet-proof vests (or augmenter fabrials that strengthen materials), painrials for both first aid and as a weapon, guided 'missiles' using attractor fabrials, etc.

6 hours ago, The Technovore said:

If you inflate things to "All of Scadrial" versus "All of Roshar", it dips even further into Scadrial's favor. 1-in-200 people being a Misting for a population of 15 million (give or take 3 million) in the Elendel basin means almost 100k (75k?) Allomancers, compared to Roshar fielding only 2k Windrunners when nearly every living spren was bonded. Windrunners were one of the more numerous Orders, but even if we're super generous and give each Order 2k Radiants, they're outnumbered 7-to-1. Add in that Scadrial should already have or will soon have repeating rifles (semi-autos) that makes any given soldier a Coinshot. Add in that we don't know the numbers for Allomancers or Feruchemists on SoScad or on SoScad's population. You wouldn't be able to rely on Twinborn for your army, but boy does Scadrial have the numbers.

If you have a situation where all 10k (20k if you're super generous) Radiants and the some 20k or so Fused go up against Scadrial, and then Harmony pulls the "Snap people with mists" thing and make 16% of the population Allomancers... anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.2 million Allomancers just from NoScad. Honor isn't currently capable of making new Radiant Spren, so even if Scadrial has no ability to actually hurt the spren, even if Radiants keep getting replaced after they're killed--they'd still be overwhelmed just on pure numbers. A Scadrian invasion (ignoring the complications involved just getting them to Roshar) would be very casualty-heavy, but successful, because Shardbearers (The Surgebinders and Thunderclasts) can't hold ground.

But not all of those Allomancers would be good in combat themselves, and not all allomantic powers are suited for combat (for example A-Aluminum, A-gold, A-duralumin) this cuts the numbers by at least 18.75 % .

Also I think spren are now more populous then they were at time of Recreance, they could breed undisturbed for over 2000 years. And I think most Mistings are comparable to Singer forms, and those can be easily created in tens-to-hundreds of thousands, so Roshar could counter those numbers I think.

If Harmony starts mass snapping, Odium can still create new Fused and as long as Singers breed fast enough, Roshar has the army, but Scadrial does not replenish their forces fast enough.

 

[BenduLuke he/him]

On 5/15/2021 at 5:56 PM, The Technovore said:

Look, at this point, if we're comparing magics, I'd say that most Radiants still beat most Metallic Artists. Stormlight gives F-Gold and A-Pewter all in one (not to mention F-Cadmium, F-Electrum, F-Bendalloy, and a touch of F-Steel), just on its own. That means that in a straight wrestling match, no holds barred, any given Radiant--heck, even just a squire is equivalent to a very potent Twinborn combo. Then you add in the power armor that's going to make life for nearly every Twinborn Combo except pewter and iron compounders miserable (I'd love to see an Iron Compounder just sit on a Radiant and squeeze the life out of them lol. Assuming they survive the insta-kill sword long enough to get close). Then you add in the Surges that can do everything from encasing the Radiant in reinforced stone, to disintegrating a Twinborn at a touch, to letting the Radiant fly in ways Vin and Kelsier could only dream of doing. Hand-to-hand combat, (without the insta-kill sword or guns, just straight fists and magic powers), Radiants smoke most if not all Scadrian Magic users. I'm sorry, just a fact.

Add in weapons and tools, and things dip somewhat in the Scadrian's favor. Guns are a great equalizer, especially the nice repeating ones that can just drain a Radiant of stormlight as they keep putting holes in them. You have the ettmetal cubes, the medallions, maybe some good ol' fashioned explosives, you can lay a nice trap for the enemy or just overwhelm them with gunpowder and lead. Except now the Radiant has their insta-kill sword, which means that just one mistake and the Scadrian's dead (except for F-Gold and F-Aluminum maybe). But even with all those weapons, it's going to be just as difficult to kill the Radiant as it would be to kill an A-Pewter/F-Gold Twinborn, assuming you get through the armor. The name of that game is still, frustratingly, attrition and survival until they run out of fuel.

If you inflate things to "All of Scadrial" versus "All of Roshar", it dips even further into Scadrial's favor. 1-in-200 people being a Misting for a population of 15 million (give or take 3 million) in the Elendel basin means almost 100k (75k?) Allomancers, compared to Roshar fielding only 2k Windrunners when nearly every living spren was bonded. Windrunners were one of the more numerous Orders, but even if we're super generous and give each Order 2k Radiants, they're outnumbered 7-to-1. Add in that Scadrial should already have or will soon have repeating rifles (semi-autos) that makes any given soldier a Coinshot. Add in that we don't know the numbers for Allomancers or Feruchemists on SoScad or on SoScad's population. You wouldn't be able to rely on Twinborn for your army, but boy does Scadrial have the numbers. 

If you have a situation where all 10k (20k if you're super generous) Radiants and the some 20k or so Fused go up against Scadrial, and then Harmony pulls the "Snap people with mists" thing and make 16% of the population Allomancers... anywhere from 1.6 million to 3.2 million Allomancers just from NoScad. Honor isn't currently capable of making new Radiant Spren, so even if Scadrial has no ability to actually hurt the spren, even if Radiants keep getting replaced after they're killed--they'd still be overwhelmed just on pure numbers. A Scadrian invasion (ignoring the complications involved just getting them to Roshar) would be very casualty-heavy, but successful, because Shardbearers (The Surgebinders and Thunderclasts) can't hold ground.

Radiants are by far the more potent and more powerful magic user. I can see why some would think that Allomancers and Feruchemists should be able to stand up to them--in Era 2, they're described by everyone as though they're gods, spinning through the mists and flaring with power with fantastically romantic imagery and prose. But Scadrial doesn't have deadShards as a comparison for power. Scadrial doesn't have gigantic building-sized crab monsters threatening the Elendel Basin. Radiants on Roshar don't get as much awe and respect for a few reasons in-narrative, (they're new, the history books despise them, these people live with Highstorms blowing in each week so it's not like they haven't seen awesome power before), but just because the prose doesn't describe them in such fabulous terms doesn't mean they're not a whole tier more than Metallic Artists are.

I'll grant Radiants could have bloodmaker, potential thug strength and speed (not steel speed), gasper, and subsumer abilities so long as the stormlight lasts or isn't neutralized or blocked.

Iron compounder nice image.

Virtually all Radiant surges have a very limited range, and until they are in range useless. In addition a radiant in the air has no cover so will be under fire for some time. Instant kill swords don't work until you reach Melee range but high velosity projectiles work the whole time you are trying to close the distance. In the hands of either thugs or tin metal born those high velocity rounds would be potentially lethal. Perhaps even in the hands of a sparker. Any twin combination that includes any of those three would be even more dangerous.

Assuming that a fight between a Radiant and a Metalborn would be toe to toe is naive. Each would be using their best weapons and skills. If the Radiant was able to close the distance in most cases they would have the advantage, but that is a big if. In addition most Radiants aren't anywhere near as talented as Kaladin. Jasna is more of a sorcerous not a warrior, and Shallon is more of a Rogue and are both less capable in a toe to toe fight. Dalinar on the other hand is handicapped by his order since he is still a novice in his surges, but is beyond Kaladin in combat skill.

Aluminum shrapnel for mines and explosives would be a real problem for any Radiants. A thug bloodmaker has a chance toe to toe if the Radiant closes the distance before being filled full of projectiles. A thug could use a Recoiless rifle or something like it from extreme range. He could also pull a rambo or comando with a 50 cal. machine gun. A steel compounder has the chance to overwhelm any order of radiant one on one. They could move fast enough to avoid being hit, add their momentum to their pushes and strike so often and hard so as to bleed the Radiants stormlight. If they did get hit by chance then yes they would lose but I put that in 5/100 chance in a strait toe to toe fight. and less than 1/100 with pushes and firearms in the mix. An Iron compounders chances depend on where the fight takes place and what is available, and also what metal the Radiant has on them not covered by armor. Though with enough weight even the armor might be susceptible to an Iron pull.

Yes metalborn are limited to a very small portion of the population, but Radiants are limited to only a few thousand spren so the larger population of Roshar isn't really an issue in the conflict. You have a few thousand metal born vs a few thousand Radiants. I don't think there are 10k to 20k Radiants and Fused. That seems like an overestimate.

I will grant that Radiants are in close combat are usually more potent, but you can't count on their close combat advantage. David beat Goliath because he was a skilled marksman and Goliath couldn't close with him before he was disabled. There is a high probability that the Rosharan's would have the same problem.

On 5/16/2021 at 0:32 AM, therunner said:

OK, understood. I think I recall Wax thinking about what you are saying, but I do not think it is evidence against "tapping large amounts always incurs penalty", since he has no experience doing so.

I looked through all the Mistborn Ars Arcana, and Khriss never talks about mechanics of tapping faster than storing, or losses due to tapping large amounts.

I am aware of this WoB, and I do not think it necessarily invalidates the other one, as it is both older and does not address the issue directly.

We do not know how exactly they will develop, and if we allow speculative future developments to Scadrial we should give the same allowance to Roshar for their fabrial tech.

They can get above trivially, and spren shield would protect them from anything short of other shards/nightblood. And since they would be dropping only 10 seconds or less, they would be extremely difficult to hit.

Those with Surge of Transportation do, if they have enough Stormlight to do it. Getting into Cognitive is relatively easy, getting out is a bit more difficult (or requires more knowledge) (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/398/#e13196), but it is possible.

Also Scadrial does not have access to Cognitive or any ability to travel back and forth, so they would not have soldiers there.

Since when does Scadrial have land mines? And when would they have time to prepare the field with them?

Artillery would be problematic, but they can be destroyed easily (Lashed boulder/Soulcasting) and Scadrial cannot replace them that easily.

Only bronze not copper, but no combination of Twinborn you proposed had either anyway. And Lightweaving is 'quiet' as those alerter spren do not notice it, so it might be difficult to detect even with bronze.

And why are you assuming Scadrial had time to prepare the battlefield?

Rule of Cool, as a lot of protagonists in books don't get 'small' injuries at all. And authorial intent is still what it is, F-iron does not impart damage resistance.

So you agree with me that all these are useless in direct fight with Radiant? Also F-bronze compounder would not be much better as assassin than a normal person, they just don't have to sleep, and you can easily detect them with basic lifesense. F-bendalloy only need no food and water, they still get sick/wounded/need items to sabotage etc, it is useful but not game-changingly so.

And all of the above Compounders are 1 in 10-20 million rare, so not soldiers but only a soldier.

Syl can become a lot of things, so long as they are not too large, and they will retain the same material properties as Shardblade. Lesser spren do not seem capable of forming weapons.

I don't think even when Adolin fights in plate at end of WoR is the ground described as shaking. Nevertheless arrows bounce off her, implying both damage resistance of plate and that plate is sufficiently heavy that the collision effectively imparts no momentum to Jasnah.

Nice analysis @The Technovore, a few points others did not mention I think.

I think you are neglecting more general tools Roshar could bring to bear, namely various fabrials. With alerters you could make traps that trigger only when someone starts using magic, with suppresors you could negate ettmetal cubes and Metallic arts within certain radius, half-shards would be good as 'basic' bullet-proof vests (or augmenter fabrials that strengthen materials), painrials for both first aid and as a weapon, guided 'missiles' using attractor fabrials, etc.

But not all of those Allomancers would be good in combat themselves, and not all allomantic powers are suited for combat (for example A-Aluminum, A-gold, A-duralumin) this cuts the numbers by at least 18.75 % .

Also I think spren are now more populous then they were at time of Recreance, they could breed undisturbed for over 2000 years. And I think most Mistings are comparable to Singer forms, and those can be easily created in tens-to-hundreds of thousands, so Roshar could counter those numbers I think.

If Harmony starts mass snapping, Odium can still create new Fused and as long as Singers breed fast enough, Roshar has the army, but Scadrial does not replenish their forces fast enough.

 

That's just it the article I quoted explains that it isn't about the amount you tap but the amount of time you compress the storage when you tap. Compressing time converts some of the storage to facilitate tapping faster. Even though it seems like a person is tapping large amounts it is only large if it is tapped faster than it was stored. Compounding hacks feruchemy and potentially allomancy, but we don't know those mechanics.

We do know that Scadrial has haze killer rounds which are comparable to high velocity armor piercing heavy slugs and that they have machine guns. So we don't need to project much into potential developments given their current tech only into more mass production and specialized materials they already have.

The Radiants still need to reach a place to drop from without detection and would still be exposed to un-shielded cross fire from below during the drop potentially from multiple machine guns. They would be better to try a kinetic lash strike where maybe they could lash a rock to run out of stormlight in time to fall into the enemy, but that would require a lot of precision and trial and error. The potential spren shield only protects them from direct strikes not cross fire from all sides from hundreds to thousands of rounds per minute and possibly per second. With bronze and tin allomancy surprise is not on the Radiants side.

Land mines are simply explosives with a trigger and that is not beyond where Scadrial is now. In the dark between battle or by steel runners and coinshot lurcher pairs. Metal born don't glow in the dark.

Artillery can only be destroyed if you can get into range and that would be costly in terms of troops and Radiants.

Lightweavers illusions would still give off a pulse that seekers or windwhisper seekers could detect.

No a seeker sparker would be a great assassin able to follow their target without detection until the target lets their guard down to deal a lethal strike. You are assuming that many of the so called useless metalborn will need to get close enough for a one on one fight, and that is just not the case. Even they are going to fight to their strengths and exploit Radiant weaknesses. I watched a movie called the art of self defense where the protagonist challenged a much more skilled martial artist to a fight to the death. Right at the beginning of the fight he pulled a pistol and shot the karate expert in the head. it is the David and Goliath situation where the marksman has a huge advantage over the melee combatant. Radiants are at less of a disadvantage than most but not enough to entirely negate the marksman advantage of Scadrial when paired with metalborn abilities.

Roshars fabrials are not military weapons and you cannot assume they will be. Show me one that is weapons grade that they currently have.

Every metalborn ability has some military application especially if paired with Scadrian Fabrials.

Spren don't breed and their population is still very limited. I don't recall anywhere that it implies otherwise.

Everytime Odium creates more fused he disperses his power. There is a reason he wont make more fused. I think it was either Raboniel or Leshwe or both that said he wont make more.

It could be the stress and injury of war that snaps Scadrians, so Harmon doesn't need to do a thing. The potential is in every one of them, and being twinborn is in every Terris decendant as they have mixed with the general population.

Comparing arrows to bullets is apples to oranges their both projectiles but not even close to the same magnitude.

[Frustration he/him]

4 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Virtually all Radiant surges have a very limited range, and until they are in range useless. In addition a radiant in the air has no cover so will be under fire for some time. Instant kill swords don't work until you reach Melee range but high velosity projectiles work the whole time you are trying to close the distance. In the hands of either thugs or tin metal born those high velocity rounds would be potentially lethal. Perhaps even in the hands of a sparker. Any twin combination that includes any of those three would be even more dangerous.

Lashings create projectiles with as much or more range than bullets, Illumination travels at the speed of light, most surges have noticable range from the user, not as insane as the first two but more than you imply.

A-Tin is a disadvantage when using firearms, the noice is bad enough with normal hearing.

8 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Assuming that a fight between a Radiant and a Metalborn would be toe to toe is naive. Each would be using their best weapons and skills. If the Radiant was able to close the distance in most cases they would have the advantage, but that is a big if. In addition most Radiants aren't anywhere near as talented as Kaladin. Jasna is more of a sorcerous not a warrior, and Shallon is more of a Rogue and are both less capable in a toe to toe fight. Dalinar on the other hand is handicapped by his order since he is still a novice in his surges, but is beyond Kaladin in combat skill.

Nor is anyone outside of the roughs and the police force going to be instantly ready for war, and with the significantly disorganised and small force even a scouting party would be almost impossible to defeate.

10 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Aluminum shrapnel for mines and explosives would be a real problem for any Radiants. A thug bloodmaker has a chance toe to toe if the Radiant closes the distance before being filled full of projectiles. A thug could use a Recoiless rifle or something like it from extreme range. He could also pull a rambo or comando with a 50 cal. machine gun. A steel compounder has the chance to overwhelm any order of radiant one on one. They could move fast enough to avoid being hit, add their momentum to their pushes and strike so often and hard so as to bleed the Radiants stormlight. If they did get hit by chance then yes they would lose but I put that in 5/100 chance in a strait toe to toe fight. and less than 1/100 with pushes and firearms in the mix. An Iron compounders chances depend on where the fight takes place and what is available, and also what metal the Radiant has on them not covered by armor. Though with enough weight even the armor might be susceptible to an Iron pull.

Again how do you kill a Thunderclast? And shrapnel isn't going through plate.

12 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Yes metalborn are limited to a very small portion of the population, but Radiants are limited to only a few thousand spren so the larger population of Roshar isn't really an issue in the conflict. You have a few thousand metal born vs a few thousand Radiants. I don't think there are 10k to 20k Radiants and Fused. That seems like an overestimate.

As already stated Spren can be made.

13 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

I will grant that Radiants are in close combat are usually more potent, but you can't count on their close combat advantage. David beat Goliath because he was a skilled marksman and Goliath couldn't close with him before he was disabled. There is a high probability that the Rosharan's would have the same problem.

No, David beat Goliath because he had faith in God.

13 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

That's just it the article I quoted explains that it isn't about the amount you tap but the amount of time you compress the storage when you tap. Compressing time converts some of the storage to facilitate tapping faster. Even though it seems like a person is tapping large amounts it is only large if it is tapped faster than it was stored. Compounding hacks feruchemy and potentially allomancy, but we don't know those mechanics.

Again give us the primary source.

15 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

The Radiants still need to reach a place to drop from without detection and would still be exposed to un-shielded cross fire from below during the drop potentially from multiple machine guns. They would be better to try a kinetic lash strike where maybe they could lash a rock to run out of stormlight in time to fall into the enemy, but that would require a lot of precision and trial and error. The potential spren shield only protects them from direct strikes not cross fire from all sides from hundreds to thousands of rounds per minute and possibly per second. With bronze and tin allomancy surprise is not on the Radiants side.

Thunderclast

16 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Artillery can only be destroyed if you can get into range and that would be costly in terms of troops and Radiants.

Soulcast from CR

or Thunderclast

16 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

No a seeker sparker would be a great assassin able to follow their target without detection until the target lets their guard down to deal a lethal strike. You are assuming that many of the so called useless metalborn will need to get close enough for a one on one fight, and that is just not the case. Even they are going to fight to their strengths and exploit Radiant weaknesses. I watched a movie called the art of self defense where the protagonist challenged a much more skilled martial artist to a fight to the death. Right at the beginning of the fight he pulled a pistol and shot the karate expert in the head. it is the David and Goliath situation where the marksman has a huge advantage over the melee combatant. Radiants are at less of a disadvantage than most but not enough to entirely negate the marksman advantage of Scadrial when paired with metalborn abilities.

Thunderclast, good luck shooting stone to death.

17 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Roshars fabrials are not military weapons and you cannot assume they will be. Show me one that is weapons grade that they currently have.

Painrail has been used in fights multiple times

18 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Every metalborn ability has some military application especially if paired with Scadrian Fabrials.

A-zinc and brass, A-aluminum in most cases etc.

20 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Spren don't breed and their population is still very limited. I don't recall anywhere that it implies otherwise.

OB chapter 108

24 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Everytime Odium creates more fused he disperses his power. There is a reason he wont make more fused. I think it was either Raboniel or Leshwe or both that said he wont make more.

He himself said he is willing to make Dalinar one, but that is besides the point as

1. Scadrial can't destroy them
2. One Thunderclast could almost wipe the floor wiht the entire continent.

25 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

It could be the stress and injury of war that snaps Scadrians, so Harmon doesn't need to do a thing. The potential is in every one of them, and being twinborn is in every Terris decendant as they have mixed with the general population.

The mist increase Allomantic potential, that is what they were refering to, and no, not everyone has potential.

[The Technovore he/him]

35 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Assuming that a fight between a Radiant and a Metalborn would be toe to toe is naive. Each would be using their best weapons and skills. If the Radiant was able to close the distance in most cases they would have the advantage, but that is a big if. In addition most Radiants aren't anywhere near as talented as Kaladin. Jasna is more of a sorcerous not a warrior, and Shallon is more of a Rogue and are both less capable in a toe to toe fight. Dalinar on the other hand is handicapped by his order since he is still a novice in his surges, but is beyond Kaladin in combat skill.

Hard disagree that Radiants will have a hard time closing distances. Gravitation Radiants will be rusting near impossible for anyone but Wax to hit, and their Plate will shrug off at least one bullet, so even if you hit them, it won't stop them. Abrasion Radiants are described to be speedy, graceful, and agile. Again, it's going to be hard to hit them. Even Radiants without those two Surges will be fast--just like Pewter, Stormlight gets them running quickly, and if they can shrug off bullets and are quickly moving, agile targets, closing the distance is going to be trivial unless they're up against F-Steel, A-Steel, or A-Iron. Also going to disagree that Jasnah is a sorceress--she walked into battle not once, but twice, and annihilated hundreds. If she's a magic-based character, she's at least multiclassed a couple levels into "Fighter". 

The bit about Radiants being agile also applies to any vehicles and artillery the Scadrians could bring to bear. When a team of armored Skybreakers could drop from the stratosphere at near-mach speeds and turn all your cannons, tanks, planes, etc. to dust before zooming away just as fast--after a while, artillery stops being an asset and starts being a massive money-sink. 

If we're going to assume the Metalborn will be highly skilled and capable, we naturally have to assume the same of the Radiants. Doing otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

And on the Radiant + Fused numbers, really, I don't know, but it doesn't seem too far out considering the point already made that spren can reproduce and that Odium and the Stormfather could make more if motivated (and an interplanetary war is plenty motivation)

 

Edit: To be fair, if a Dustbringer or Edgedancer charged at a garrison of some dozen Scadrian machine gunners, they'd quickly be overwhelmed by bullets, and no amount of Stormlight would save them as long as the guns kept shooting. But that's not Scadrian magic, that's machine guns being a very potent and powerful magic (Murica emoji goes here). Honestly Stonewards could probably make themselves bulletproof easily tho so it just depends on using your Radiants wisely 

Edited May 19, 2021 by The Technovore

[therunner he/him]

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Virtually all Radiant surges have a very limited range, and until they are in range useless. In addition a radiant in the air has no cover so will be under fire for some time. Instant kill swords don't work until you reach Melee range but high velosity projectiles work the whole time you are trying to close the distance. In the hands of either thugs or tin metal born those high velocity rounds would be potentially lethal. Perhaps even in the hands of a sparker. Any twin combination that includes any of those three would be even more dangerous.

In that case you are arguing that guns are deadly, not that Metalborn are. That would make gun only a temporary advantage (until Roshar has comparable weaponry), and one that is only useful when stocked with aluminum ammo.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Assuming that a fight between a Radiant and a Metalborn would be toe to toe is naive. Each would be using their best weapons and skills. If the Radiant was able to close the distance in most cases they would have the advantage, but that is a big if. In addition most Radiants aren't anywhere near as talented as Kaladin. Jasna is more of a sorcerous not a warrior, and Shallon is more of a Rogue and are both less capable in a toe to toe fight. Dalinar on the other hand is handicapped by his order since he is still a novice in his surges, but is beyond Kaladin in combat skill.

Jasnah is an utter monster on battlefield, see RoW, and that is when she is holding back.

Also, most Metalborn simply are not as good a shot as Wax is, so on hand saying most Radiants are not as good as Kaladin, but on the other hand assuming all Metalborn are expert marksmen like Wax is disingenuous.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Aluminum shrapnel for mines and explosives would be a real problem for any Radiants. A thug bloodmaker has a chance toe to toe if the Radiant closes the distance before being filled full of projectiles. A thug could use a Recoiless rifle or something like it from extreme range. He could also pull a rambo or comando with a 50 cal. machine gun. A steel compounder has the chance to overwhelm any order of radiant one on one. They could move fast enough to avoid being hit, add their momentum to their pushes and strike so often and hard so as to bleed the Radiants stormlight. If they did get hit by chance then yes they would lose but I put that in 5/100 chance in a strait toe to toe fight. and less than 1/100 with pushes and firearms in the mix. An Iron compounders chances depend on where the fight takes place and what is available, and also what metal the Radiant has on them not covered by armor. Though with enough weight even the armor might be susceptible to an Iron pull.

Plate would stop shrapnel easily, Scadrial does not have .50 cal machine guns nor recoil-less rifles. Also, aluminum is still too expansive to even make guns out of, so they will not be able to fill every weapon they have with aluminum shrapnel or ammo.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Yes metalborn are limited to a very small portion of the population, but Radiants are limited to only a few thousand spren so the larger population of Roshar isn't really an issue in the conflict. You have a few thousand metal born vs a few thousand Radiants. I don't think there are 10k to 20k Radiants and Fused. That seems like an overestimate.

This ignores various forms of Singers, which use only lesser spren, which are far more numerous, and those could be very deadly (Stormform, Warform). Most of those Metalborn however are only Misting and Ferrings (and around 1/3 has powers that are not suited to combat, so are effectively regular human), Scadrial would have low hundreds of natural Twinborn at best.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

That's just it the article I quoted explains that it isn't about the amount you tap but the amount of time you compress the storage when you tap. Compressing time converts some of the storage to facilitate tapping faster. Even though it seems like a person is tapping large amounts it is only large if it is tapped faster than it was stored. Compounding hacks feruchemy and potentially allomancy, but we don't know those mechanics.

Except for that WoB you are not taking into account, but I do, which tells us otherwise.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

We do know that Scadrial has haze killer rounds which are comparable to high velocity armor piercing heavy slugs and that they have machine guns. So we don't need to project much into potential developments given their current tech only into more mass production and specialized materials they already have.

The Radiants still need to reach a place to drop from without detection and would still be exposed to un-shielded cross fire from below during the drop potentially from multiple machine guns. They would be better to try a kinetic lash strike where maybe they could lash a rock to run out of stormlight in time to fall into the enemy, but that would require a lot of precision and trial and error. The potential spren shield only protects them from direct strikes not cross fire from all sides from hundreds to thousands of rounds per minute and possibly per second. With bronze and tin allomancy surprise is not on the Radiants side.

Hazekiller rounds are in no way comparable to high velocity armor piercing slugs, none of them have any such properties. The ones with ceramic tips are used against coinshots, as they cannot push on the ceramic. Those against pewterarms are simply larger and filled with more gunpowder, but not armor piercing in any way, shape or form. So yes, we do need to project much more development before they have anything approaching armor piercing rounds.

(Sidenote: The fact that anti-coinshot rounds use ceramic and not aluminum, and that aluminum is not in anti-Thug shots, also shows just how expansive aluminum is in Era 2).

Modern weapons can shoot up to ~1200 meters (9mm guns) or ~3000 meters (high powered rifles or machine guns), but the bullet stops being effective in far lower heights (roughly a halfway, or 1/3 way up), so even then you could no kill anyone higher than ~1500 meters, and that is late 20th century weapons. Scadrial is a century behind in this, and if we are being generous their most powerful rifles could kill someone ~800 meters high in the air, if shot straight up. Radiant under Lashing can cover this distance under 8 seconds under 4 lashings, so they would be exposed to fire for a relatively short amount of time + they would be moving at high speeds (and they are a small target).

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Artillery can only be destroyed if you can get into range and that would be costly in terms of troops and Radiants.

Soulcast from CR, no range needed and no cost to Radiants.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Lightweavers illusions would still give off a pulse that seekers or windwhisper seekers could detect.

Odium spren 'made' to detect surgebinding could not detect Lightweaving and Seekers cannot detect pulses muffled by Coppercloud (or those of Well), hence Lightweaving might be 'quiet' enough to escape detection. F-tin/A-bronze twinborn would have a better shot at this.

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

No a seeker sparker would be a great assassin able to follow their target without detection until the target lets their guard down to deal a lethal strike. You are assuming that many of the so called useless metalborn will need to get close enough for a one on one fight, and that is just not the case. Even they are going to fight to their strengths and exploit Radiant weaknesses. I watched a movie called the art of self defense where the protagonist challenged a much more skilled martial artist to a fight to the death. Right at the beginning of the fight he pulled a pistol and shot the karate expert in the head. it is the David and Goliath situation where the marksman has a huge advantage over the melee combatant. Radiants are at less of a disadvantage than most but not enough to entirely negate the marksman advantage of Scadrial when paired with metalborn abilities.

If this is your measure for usefulness in combat, then 2nd Oath Elsecaller is the most useful combat oriented magic user, they can camp out in CR and soulcast people away (or just Soulcast air around people into oil+flame, or prison). They could take out any Mistborn, Feruchemist, Twinborn and even a Fullborn (if they caught him when not tapping or burning, as then they would not be more invested than a person).

7 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Roshars fabrials are not military weapons and you cannot assume they will be. Show me one that is weapons grade that they currently have.

Half-shards are literally designed as military equipment and painrials are shown multiple times to be used in combat. Also, I already did show them in my previous post, but once again:

1. Half-shard shield - smaller discount shardplate of comparable durability, to help against gunfire
2. Painrial - shown to cripple everyone with pain, attach to Investiture conductive net or find a way to make it ranged and you have something resembling granade, or you can just use it in melee combat
3. Supperssor fabrials - to negate magic of opposing forces denying them Metalborn abilities, disabling their ettmetal weapons and craft in certain radius
4. Attractor fabrial attached to large piece of iron/steel (some chosen metal) set to a timer (they have watches) - lash this in the direction of Scadrial forces and the attractor fabrial will draw in the same substance, pulling away guns/ammo etc. temporarily taking away weapons.
5. Conjoiner can be used to create a basic gun, just modify the mechanism powering Kaladin's gauntlet.

8 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Everytime Odium creates more fused he disperses his power. There is a reason he wont make more fused. I think it was either Raboniel or Leshwe or both that said he wont make more.

He won't make more Fused because he does not want to invest himself on Roshar even more than he already has. But he is still willing to make exceptions, and since this thread is Scadrian vs Rosharan magic, we can include his making Fused even when only as a response against Harmony making more Metalborn.

8 hours ago, BenduLuke said:

Comparing arrows to bullets is apples to oranges their both projectiles but not even close to the same magnitude.

I never compared arrows to bullets, I only mentioned arrows as an example of how Plate seems to be very heavy (as the momentum of the arrow did not even nudge it). Also, while penetration mechanism of arrow and a bullet differ (cutting vs pushing) their momenta are actually comparable, as typical arrow is ~4x as heavy as a bullet, but moves ~1/4 of the speed, giving comparable momenta. Of course in kinetic energy bullet will win roughly a 4x.

[Gisaku75]

24 minutes ago, therunner said:

I never compared arrows to bullets, I only mentioned arrows as an example of how Plate seems to be very heavy (as the momentum of the arrow did not even nudge it). Also, while penetration mechanism of arrow and a bullet differ (cutting vs pushing) their momenta are actually comparable, as typical arrow is ~4x as heavy as a bullet, but moves ~1/4 of the speed, giving comparable momenta. Of course in kinetic energy bullet will win roughly a 4x.

No, the difference in power between a bullet and an arrow is huge, which is why rifles have replaced bows. The 45 70 cartridge was the standard for both rifle and gatling guns from Western times. it has a minimum power of 2304 joules, which is enough to drill 3mm of hard steel. a 160lb longbow has a power of 109 joules 20 times less and can only dent 2mm of steel. A rifle shot can severely damage or break a plate. An upgraded weapon for an Allomancer could easily injure a shardplate warrior.

[therunner he/him]

49 minutes ago, Gisaku75 said:

No, the difference in power between a bullet and an arrow is huge, which is why rifles have replaced bows. The 45 70 cartridge was the standard for both rifle and gatling guns from Western times. it has a minimum power of 2304 joules, which is enough to drill 3mm of hard steel. a 160lb longbow has a power of 109 joules 20 times less and can only dent 2mm of steel. A rifle shot can severely damage or break a plate. An upgraded weapon for an Allomancer could easily injure a shardplate warrior.

I never said the difference is not huge, only that the momenta are actually comparable, which is what was relevant for my point. I was mistaken on the kinetic energy and thank you for correction, I was mostly concerned with the 'barrel' speed, which would help arrow more, but even then the arrow would still have ~10x less kinetic energy even in favorable conditions.

[Gisaku75]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

I never said the difference is not huge, only that the momenta are actually comparable, which is what was relevant for my point. I was mistaken on the kinetic energy and thank you for correction, I was mostly concerned with the 'barrel' speed, which would help arrow more, but even then the arrow would still have ~10x less kinetic energy even in favorable conditions.

I'm sorry but your reasoning is fundamentally wrong. Both bullets and arrows are penetrating weapons that concentrate all their impact force in a single point. Arrows are much more effective against soft materials such as sandbags due to their weight. Bullets are much more effective against rigid materials such as metal due to their speed. The plates are an extremely rigid material, in fact they do not bend like metal but crack like glass, breaking into a thousand pieces once the breaking point is reached. The fact that they do not transmit any kickback to the wearer is given by the strength and weight increased not by the resistance of the plates. A shard hammer is less effective than a rifle bullet because it distributes the force of the impact over a larger surface and is much slower. And the speed increases the impact power exponentially and not linearly as happens with weight.

 

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Gisaku75 said:

I'm sorry but your reasoning is fundamentally wrong. Both bullets and arrows are penetrating weapons that concentrate all their impact force in a single point. Arrows are much more effective against soft materials such as sandbags due to their weight. Bullets are much more effective against rigid materials such as metal due to their speed. The plates are an extremely rigid material, in fact they do not bend like metal but crack like glass, breaking into a thousand pieces once the breaking point is reached. The fact that they do not transmit any kickback to the wearer is given by the strength and weight increased not by the resistance of the plates. A shard hammer is less effective than a rifle bullet because it distributes the force of the impact over a larger surface and is much slower. And the speed increases the impact power exponentially and not linearly as happens with weight.

 

Actually no, while both are penetrating projectiles, the way they achieve penetration is different. Bullets are generally dome-shaped and punch through a target, pushing the material and tissue away; arrowheads are sharpened with a tip and primarily cut the target material. This means that while kevlar and such are good at stopping bullets (good tensile strength), they can be penetrated with sharp enough arrows (as the material can be cut relatively easily).

Against plate bullets are more effective, no questions there. And any kickback to the wearer is due to transmission of momentum, which for small arms and arrows is comparable (rifle ammo would have ~2x the momentum of large and fast arrow), so of course resistance of plate plays little role (and I never claimed it did). My whole point was that since arrow hitting plate did not even nudge plate, the plate had to have been quite heavy.

Also impact powers grows quadratically (or with a third power if we assume 'contact time' during which energy transfers shortens appropriately), not exponentially.

Edited May 20, 2021 by therunner
spelling

[Frustration he/him]

4 hours ago, Gisaku75 said:

 A shard hammer is less effective than a rifle bullet because it distributes the force of the impact over a larger surface and is much slower. 

Actually while a bullet is surviveable a shardhammer is not.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

It's tough to discuss Plate objectively because Brandon wrote it as magical power armor from the start. While we see it stop rocks and arrows now,  it will stop bullets and explosions in a decade, and it will stop lasers or blasters in a few centuries. This makes addressing all the posts with calculations for cracking Plate difficult because I'm afraid that Brandon might just go with a rule of cool in the end.

That said, the largest advantages Shardplate provides is that it's immune to penetration and can be regrown with Stormlight. So even if you created a weapon that can reliably shatter a section of Plate, you could never kill its wearer in one hit. I mean, you can, but that would require so much force that the wearer would die of the impact strength, even if the Plate itself is still in place. Regrowing part can enhance this advantage even further if it's fast enough. I guess we'll see in book 5 if it is or not.  

At the time of era 2, the best way to crack the plate is probably a "stopping" rifle, aka Ranet's shotgun, aka a gun that shoots cartridges around half the size of an adult person's wrist in diameter. IRL hunters in Africa used them to stop charging rhinos and other large and angry animals. A slightly more advanced solution would probably be something like a small HESH shell to kill a Radiant with a concussive blast without the need to break the Plate. However, I'm not sure if downscaling it to a reasonable size for a handheld weapon can be done while keeping enough explosive to produce a noticeable effect. (An awesome minute-long video that shows how HESH works.) The pinnacle of non-Invested weaponry for use against Plate is a particle and/or an energy beam because it starts to deal damage as soon as the body is exposed.

11 hours ago, therunner said:

This ignores various forms of Singers, which use only lesser spren, which are far more numerous, and those could be very deadly (Stormform, Warform). Most of those Metalborn however are only Misting and Ferrings (and around 1/3 has powers that are not suited to combat, so are effectively regular human), Scadrial would have low hundreds of natural Twinborn at best.

I read this and remembered that Shardplate is conductive. Then I imagined a Singer Radiant in Stormform, with a ground wire running to a point on a finger or palm making their best Emperor Palpatine impression. Kind of scary.

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Actually while a bullet is surviveable a shardhammer is not.

Did I miss something? What's so special about shardhammers? 

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, ScadrianTank said:

Did I miss something? What's so special about shardhammers? 

Dalinar repeatedly sent people flying with swings from them, that force will kill.