Tamriel Wolfsbaine

I think the best option any one from Scadrial has against plate is to unlock iron compounding and either steel running or pewter allomancy to quickly grapple the shardbearer and then tapp millions upon millions of lbs whilst sitting on top of them. No punching allowed just be strictly above them and tap everything. You have 0 change of building any type of momentum as iron is not allowed to increase strength or energy when moved in any manner other than where gravity is currently pulling you. Eh it breaks my heart. Pewter arms just need to throw bowlingballs or boulders. Honestly better than using steel no matter the load out. A rock can crack plate better than a bullet. Still I argue that the type of loadout matter on your ammunition. I would not show up to a fight against a shardbearer with a modern day infantry weapon. Grab the .50 cal or the 700 nitro and use one or two mega shots carrying 6-10x the energy of a single shot from some weak nato round. Still won't be enough to match Kaladins drop kick. Or a casual poke from a shardspear. Ugh.

Real simple question to vote on. Would a magnet stick to a shardplate or shardblade?

I think that is my biggest issue with SA and the future of the cosmere. What attracted me to Brandon's writing and the cosmere in general was that they were hard magic systems. Honestly the softer they get the more turned off I get towards his newer works. I really really loved Mistborn. It was outlined with enough rules that it was almost like reading scifi in a fantasy setting. It was one of the things I saw and made note of in an interview (either Orson Scott Card or Brandon Sanderson I can't remember which) where the author was asked about scifi vs fantasy. What is StarWars? Magic with space ships. I prefer the mistborn style. Lots of rules on a magic system and everyone is living by them. You are absolutely right. The further the cosmere progresses the more rules don't matter. This is coming from me who loves the idea of a bendalloy compounder gaining access to aetherbound abilities or Lifts boon. Breaking rules is fun but I prefer them to be broken via the rules of other strict systems vs some handwaving and saying "spiritual realmatics mumbo jumbo rule of cool".

So if she is traveling 100km/hr then it only means she is generating even more energy on those pushes. It could also be that she is using more controlled pushes and pulls and that the amount of metal does make a difference. Zane was able to hover with his steel. So it is a titratable thing. She could be pulling themselves to her at a smaller rate than pushing out. She could be flaring and pushing harder as she senses the resistance. I don't think any metals other than the enhancement metals have been shown as an on or off thing. Brandon makes it pretty clear that every other metal works on a sliding scale and that the allomancer has the ability to adjust that. Hense my thoughts that for a 2.5lb horse shoe that amount of energy to push herself at that speed is the same energy she would be able to place on that horseshoe in the opposite direction. For him to be so focused on the idea that the force has an opposite reaction I would say that the steel pushing battles are perfect examples of the energy transferring. Vin doesn't go flying just because she is smaller. She goes flying in her push battle with kelsier because he is generating more energy. Also the whole draw of mistborn vs mistborn combat is that they keep up with eachother and make a good race out of it no matter how much they weigh. I don't think Kelsier would have a difficult time keeping pace with her if he learned her horse shoe trick (granted he had his own tricks and fine control of steel and iron as does Wax have his own tricks). But the energy needed would have to be different. As for why Wax uses guns and not just bullet sized ball bearings? I honestly don't know. Maybe it is convenience. Maybe it is to spare his steel? He still uses casings to launch himself around Elendel with steel which is interesting as he doesn't seem to be moving at a snails pace compared to the 2.5lbs of metal but he also elects to using his shotgun to maneuver himself around at lighter weights which is also interesting. There is very limited following of any sort of rules with steel and iron. Trying to follow any rules is sure to find a spot where they don't jive well with eachother. So where is the middle section? Anything smaller than the human using the power is limited to the energy a coin can be shot at and therefore a 3lb ball of metal is more effective being thrown by a pewter arm than shot by a coinshot? I don't know that physics can ever solve this. Shooting a .22 at shardplate is the same as shooting a .50bmg at shardplate unless Wax is using it in which case it could be infinitely stronger than either of those options but still takes 2-3 shots to crack plate because a steel push can increase the energy of even a bullet moving well past the speed of sound. However erase all of that because Kaladin can fall forward with a super drop kick breaking all of the bones in his lower body and break 4 pieces of plate at once even counting the crumple effect of his suicidal maneuver, sparing precisely the amount of stormlight needed to heal himself enough to still fight but not be able to survive another hit. There really is no consistency at all. Which sort of infuriates me. Edit: it is the examples in text that have no consistency by the way. I am enjoying the discussion. I just don't think there is any in-between. You can launch a 200lb man 100m/s but a 17lb shotput is limited to the same energy potential of a 10gram coin.

Ah. The only armor stronger than shardplate is that which the author grants through the need to allow his character to survive until he wants them dead... PLOT ARMOR.

I don't know if Brandon has taken into account the difference in calibers that can exist. A .44mag with modern rounds is pushing less than 1400 joules. A 700 nitro or a 50BMG are both capable of pushing 10+x that amount of energy. Hand loaded rounds could push 20,000 joules. Not to mention all of the different cores and metals that could be used as the bullet itself. To say it resists bullets well is a really really broad statement. Its like saying getting into a crash at 10mph is basically the same as getting into a crash at 80mph and everything in-between.

I never said super sonic speed. I am talking 4+x slower than that. I never tried to push supersonic speeds onto this. Estimated velocity when Olympic thrower launches a shot is 38m/s. With a Tungsten 3 inch diameter ball bearing the kinetic energy there is 3200+ joules. That is with female weights. Men shotputters throw 7.62 kilos which would be 5500 joules and measure in at 3.5 inches in diameter. These people don't have pewter let alone Steel. Do you really think that steel pushes are weaker than a shot putter tossing a shot that size? Considering you are using your own size vs the ball itself and you can continue pushing it the entire way? I just think you far underestimate the power of steel. Say Vin does weigh 110lbs and she only clocks in at 60km/h (which I think is pretty low given she is traveling in large arcs over the ground and pewter sprint wasn't too far behind those speeds) that still requires more energy than those speeds (6929 joules per jump at least not counting the arc so I would estimate higher than that since a good portion of her speed and traveling is getting a good enough angle to use the horse shoe trick.) If a 200 lb mistborn were keeping pace with her each one of their pushes would have to generate 12600 joules. But what about the metal and how much metal is there? A horse shoe is just over a kilo. If more metal = more energy and Vin is making these jumps off of just over a kilos worth of metal. How fast would that horse shoe be traveling if not for the ground? The same energy that is required to let her move at 60km/hr (again not counting the arc and trying to be really conservative in these estimations) would send that horse shoe at 2.5lbs flying at 111m/s The 200 lb man? He would be shooting the horse shoe at 149m/s to generate a 60km/hr pace. None of this counts for the ground absorbing energy or the arc. I imagine the energy would be greater. And a 3inch ball bearing of Tungsten would have more metallic mass to push from in a tighter condensed space as well as being more aerodynamic. I think that pushing against it would actually be stronger steel lines than the horse shoe.

I don't think the energy of kaladin is a good example. It is apples to oranges. His legs are like the crumple zone of a car only they work better than the crumple zone of the car by virtue of being surrounded by a bunch of squishy bits. Not to mention the shardbearer going sprawling is another good illustration of wasted energy. Not only do you have Kaladins body acting like a crumple zone but you also have the shardbearer moving away from him. And 4 sections of plate were broken. I don't think that this argument disproves anything that I have been saying. The metal ball is smaller and the sphere allows it to hit with as small of a cross section as possible. The crumple zone of a solid piece of metal doesn't really exist (why I was asking what metal would be best. Perhaps Tungsten as its density is nearly 3 times that of steel or iron and it has the hardness to solve the issue of deforming that gold would have.) I like that demonstration of 2 ballbearings hitting eachother casually and the energy being great enough to create a Shockwave. Granted they are the perfect size for this to happen at 2 inches in diameter each for that demonstration but that also shows how the size and shape of the object matters. So if made from Tungsten a 2 inch diameter ball bearing would weight about 1325 grams and if we bring it well underneath the 100m/s and say its going 80m/s it would still generate 4200+ joules. Which would be more effective of a weapon than a head sized stone anyways. At 3 inches in diameter it would be 4.5 kilos almost and generate 14000+ joules. With no crumple zone and a small area for impact. Furthermore, to say duralumin couldn't do it is kind of silly. Wax jumped to the ship while carrying Wayne thanks to duralumin. Not Wax was flinging cars and trucks casually with duralumin in TLM. Now does anyone want to be carrying around a 10lb metal ball with them? I know I probably wouldn't. But if I was a mistborn and had to fight someone in shardplate I would be all over it. Give me 2 or 3.

Awesome. Thanks.

I just found this awesome post. In this post he calculates the slings and human sized heads... he believes 1580 joules or so is required to crack plate. That puts this at somewhere just over the 1.5inch diameter iron sphere at 370fps. Granted this is about 4x faster than a sling but its from a mistborn... who can fling their body around faster than a sling. It is a solid piece of metal. However I may be misunderstanding how Steel works. Is it based on the amount of metal? Pushing a solid metal coin is easier than pushing a metal flake. But pushing a golfballsized solid metal sphere is harder than pushing a coin? The size of the mistborn matters right? So would this golfball sized projectile fly faster or slower from someone at 200lbs than vin at maybe 110? Wax gets to maximize output with his weight right? So say a fatter mistborn was using it? Do you still think these speeds are unrealistic?

I get that the MAG isn't exactly cannon. It simply has some figured that I think make sense. I agree that shields can block coins. That is a big part of why I am posting this. A quarter is about 6 grams traveling at 370fps would only have 28ft-lbs of kinetic energy. Hence a bit of confusion. Those are used as weapons frequently. I have to assume that steel pushes coins faster than 250mph (~370fps) as that wouldn't do much to even the softest of humans. However I'm not talking coins. I'm not even talking bullets. A steel push is capable of shooting a mistborn into the air 100+feet. The acceleration is nearly instant and it continues so long as you keep pushing. Hence my thoughts of stepping it up with larger spheres. Wax with Vindication is an interesting point but if that bullet is already going faster than the speed of sound how is it that Waxes push does anything to it anyway? Unless he is simply pushing when it hits. Which leads to my point that a 3inch diameter sphere of iron at arrow speeds is 8.6x the kinetic energy of a modern day .44mag round. Again, I only use the MAG rules as a speculative baseline. The coins as weapons thing proves that speed of a coin must be far higher than that. And 4lbs is still far far far lighter than a 160lb person so I assume the push would still gather more than enough speed.

I am no physics expert but I am trying to figure out in my mind just how tough shardplate really is. I think shardplate can easily resist coins shot at it. But how big and fast does a projectile have to travel to deal damage to a shardplate? While I don't think we have solid numbers from Brandon on speed from steel pushes we do have the MAG which lists 2 different speeds ranging from 100mph to 250mph. This puts the allomantically pushed metals about the range of speeds I would expect to see from some traditional self bows all the way to higher end compound bows (150fps - 370fps). If I was a mistborn I would probably just try to collect and carry multiple different sized spheres of metals. So while I don't think coins would do the trick, we know that bullets could. But at those speeds how big would these spheres have to be to make it happen? Iron spheres at 3inches in diameter are 1.8kg and at 1 inch in diameter they are 67.5 grams. There is a big gap between these but I am curious where people think it would land to be 1 hit to crack some plate? I assume that if a .44 could crack plate in 2-3 shots and it only weighs 15.5 grams the slower speed could be made up for in those sizes of spheres. A 15.5 gram .44mag at 1350fps generates 971ft-lbs of kinetic energy. At 370fps a 67gram 1 inch in diameter iron sphere would generate 314 ft lbs. A 1.5 inch in diameter iron sphere would weight 227g and generate 1065ft lbs. 2 inches would weigh 540g and generate 2533ft lbs 3 inches weighs 1.8kg and would generate 8443ft lbs. That is just with iron. Gold is more than 2.5x as dense as iron. Just a 1.5 in diameter sphere of gold would be 558 grams and generate nearly 3x the kinetic energy of a .44mag. I guess this leads me to questions of optimization. Gold is far more expensive and softer. I don't know that it would ever be worth using it. What metals do you think would lend to a heavier density while still maintaining the benefits of being able to withstand that sort of force? Where would you want to stop for kinetic energy levels and call it good? I assume that part of why Vin doesn't travel at the speed of an arrow is because of her size and air resistance. That said I don't think dense solid spheres of metal are going to make that much of a difference when being used as steel and iron allomancy projectiles.

Okay I did a quick (not super thorough look) for WoBs and none of them said anything that I saw. So I will ask the community. Magnets and Mistborn? Do you think that magnets can be pushed and pulled on as other metals do? I want to say yes. I also want to say that they would all have their own lines attached to them. Picture in my mind that makes me want to ask? I picture some mistborn with a necklace comprised of magnets, that can all easily break away from them and be used as many different sized projectiles. Spheres ranging anywhere from 0.5 inches in diameter out to 2 or even 3 inches in diameter. I know the heaviest ones would be insanely heavy but I like the idea of carrying heavier projectiles on me at once. My next question is about burning magnets? If they were made with iron could you burn the magnet like normal iron? Could you store attributes into magnetized metals as a ferring?

I mean I think the chance of death certainly makes Warbreaker a more enjoyable system to read about. It does impress me all the more that Vasher has survived so many fights, and against some dangerous people too. When I think about it... Radiant's healing through everything is only highlighted because radiants, even the best soldier in the cosmere, have all taken hits that should have killed them had they been anyone else. How many times has Vasher been hit through his fighting? Shards or no shards Vasher never took a hit that could kill him. Vivenna's cloak could have caught an arrow coming at the eye slit. While Awakening can't heal a person, we really haven't seen much threat against the awakeners anyways. And I guess there is always Nightblood.

Ah okay. Well with the Elantrians and Radiants being more than just functionally immortal while near their home base I would just desperately like to see other systems not be ragdolls. It's a bummer that the god king can trip and fall 2 feet crack his head open and die, while claiming to be one of the most invested individuals in the cosmere and other, less invested, individuals can swallow a warhead, have it go off in their stomachs, and stormlight will have them pieced back together before the Shockwave hits the next room.

I guess I was thinking one portion of you may die off but the others are still there. But if I think of the spirit web as a single person's sDNA it seems more like when one part dies the whole dies.

Another Awakening question here. So being the 10th heightening on its own will not allow a person to have any sort of healing magic (Perhaps they can regen a bit but shard withered limbs and such would all stay). What if you were at the 9th or 10th heightening and had a regrown fabrial? Could you awaken it and command it to use itself on you when you get injured? Then you carry all of your breaths in your clothing and such. Even if you get chopped through the spine that fabrial could revive you and you would have access to all of your breaths again. Perhaps you could carry the breaths on your person still and not worry about it. If a shardblade passed through your spine would all breaths be lost instantly or would the fabrial heal you quickly enough that you would retain most of them?

Looking at this WoB: Awakening is all about giving. Giving from yourself to someone or something else. Hemalurgy is all about splicing foreign sDNA into your own. Do you think it is possible to transfer the breaths from one portion of that spiritweb to the other and vice versa? Could an awakener awaken themself or that new part of "not themselves"? Could we see some sort of Lord Voldemont and the horcruxes sort of magic? Where each spike and each piece of a hemalugist's spirit web could be holding onto breaths to enhance or awaken or revive the others?

Higher heightening interact with Awakening in a way that makes the awakener far more proficient. Do you think these sorts of interactions are shard dependent? Vasher and twinsoul are both great examples of exploiting one shards investiture to fuel another system entirely. Are understanding the magic via supercharged investiture and performing better two different things? I imagine that if you rewired some breaths and used them to supplement what is already burning allomamtically they could boost the effectiveness of that power. So healing and pewter never quite worked like that. What about steel sight? It seems to be more of an unlocking of understandings according to the idea that even an era 2 allomancer could unlock the ability to see trace metals (or axi? These two things seem to be either the exact same or totally different and I am not 100% convinced either way as Kel doesn't mention lines as he has no ability to push and pull on metal anymore but sees the same way inquisitors do.) Would having a supercharged spirit web with so much investiture make burning the metals more of an instinctive thing? We hear a ton about instinctive burning and it seems that most allomancers reach that point (especially pewter) eventually. But in awakening it requires the 6th heightening. Perhaps awakening did not come into existance until the first person obtained the 6th heightening? It is something that can be taught but it was unknown until the first person broke through to the instinctive stage? A kid could learn to build a block house on their own but how much faster can they accomplish that if they have a parent to show them how? I kind of view investiture the same way at those higher levels. Where is the line between shards and their investiture working on outside systems drawn? It is possible to fuel other systems with other shards. Heck, it is possible to fuel a system belonging to something outside of Adonalsium entirely as we see with Aetherbound powers being fueled by a shards investiture. I find it hard to believe that having the 10th heightening wouldn't unlock some insight and power to other magics. Doesnt a Dawnshard supercharge everything? All that said. I think it would be a large waste to "burn breaths" or something. But the heightening and being that invested should have some sort of impact on even other non Endowment systems no?

Where do you think the GodKing sits in the lineup? Considering he has at least 25x the investiture of the returned themselves? All of these other beings seem to have a way to come back or heal. Do you think the God King or anyone with 50,000+ breaths would have some sort of passive healing vs all but the most dangerous weapons as Vasher said? Also there is definately a difference between the innate investiture and kinetic. A lot of these example mix both don't they? That is where the Nalthian system fails. They don't really have kinetic investiture to use right? They simply supply so much innate investiture that even inanimate objects start to become awake enough to follow commands. Do you think that the innate investiture at those levels would impact the abilities of kinetic investirure from other sources? Say you had a plain old pewter arm who happened to land 50,000 breaths. Do you think it would supercharge his pewter usage? Do you think while using kinetic investiture in addition to all of those breaths that simple thug could heal through more devastating attacks? Could they, overtime, heal the withered husk of a shardblade cut arm or legs?

I thought, and I could be wrong, that there is an invested hierarchy. Nathian with a single breath > Scadrian > drab. Say that because lifesense doesn't work on drabs but it does on other people from the cosmere. I thought that there was a WoB that said what the set did letting people live after spiking their innate investiture was worse than what a drab experiences giving up their breath. With no way to know the gaps and the inbetweens it could easily be taken either way. Perhaps the Set is taking just as much as a breaths worth. They could be taking more or they could be taking less. But scadrial native has enough to trigger lifesense. And a person spiked of innate investiture by the Set is worse off than a drab.

I am excited to see what this system has to offer. I would love to see if it sheds any light on potential mechanics that will cross well for making homebrews for the Mistborn Adventure Game. As a huge fan of the RP I can't get over social forms of combat as well. Would love to see how they handle making rules around what is honestly a magic system that is imbalanced at every step. I struggle to try to cross any game with any form or concept of what is the Knights Radiant. In a world where the most powerful beings become as obsolete to their radiant overlords as the stable boy was to them before... always makes me sad for Adolin haha.

You combine Ranette's custom rounds and hemalurgic rounds (antilight even?) with modern day ballistics and you could make some DISGUSTING anti radiant rounds I am positive. (Side note: gunsmithing and custom ammunition is probably one of the most fun parts of the MAG and I am so glad crafty games leaned in so heavily on the tech being a viable build option, even for characters with no powers.) That isn't to say that radiants will not be dangerous. I just don't forsee the shards keeping them ahead of the arms race for very long. I really forsee magics becoming less important than anti-magic and tech. And the ghostbloods are going to keep Scadrial a step ahead of Roshar for a long time.

I guess my thoughts are simply in that we are already seeing magic and gunsmithing going hand in hand with eachother. Anything along these lines placed in bullet form could be a huge difference maker in the wars to come. Kelsier already has ghostbloods gathering and reporting as much information as they can on the tech of other planets. The ghostbloods had already acquired soulcasters and shards. I am sure they are watching Navani closely and they are doing the same thing on other planets in the background (at least I am sure that if Kel has agents working for him from other planets he is for sure having agents work for him on those planets). Kelsier doesn't get a ton of credit for being some powerful scholar but I would put his knowledge and his organization among the most dangerous groups in the cosmere at the moment. Imagine what could start to come into existance if he had someone of Ranette's talent in gunsmithing as well and start combining all of these. Part of me thinks Harmony and Marsh would have to do something to slow him down if he is getting too far right?

So we know and we have seen higher investiture does cooler stuff. But I am curious as to what that means for Scadrial? We see people having innate investiture stolen. I personally believe this gives us some insight on how nicrosil ferrings might work too. But what does that mean? We see the heightenings all start to compound and make people stronger not only in their personal physiques and mental but also in their awakening abilities. 6th heightening gives instinctive awakening which is, in my opinion, is a prime spot. But awakening is a bit different. You are gaining heightenings off of the back of Endowments own investiture and you are using it to fuel your power. With Scadrial your innate investiture would be tied directly to preservation and maybe ruin? So when these new spikes are being siphoned and moved over what could they do? When given to someone with allomancy I anticipate we might see them walk upwards towards power levels seen by the bands. Maybe a coinshot with a spike holding 30 scadrians innate investiture would be able to push and pull on the metals inside someone else? Maybe they gain steelsight like the bands did (which I personally think is different from spiked eyes sight). Maybe this is the way to making a pseudo lerasium? Get enough pieces of Preservation into a spike or two and potentially be so close that you could snap into a mistborn? Couple this with the discussion about hemalurgic DNA @Trusk'our has going on elsewhere and you could be looking at new bloodlines of original mistborn levels of investiture from preservation.