Tamriel Wolfsbaine

16 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

As this topic has been resurrected, I hope it's alright to give my opinion. 

Before, I might have chosen a Full Feruchemist + Coinshot for combat ability, mobility(flight and speed), and even keeping a hand out for their allies and being able to make Unkeyed/Unsealed Metalminds for them.

However, Tapping physical speed makes your metals Burn faster, essentially Flaring them more powerfully than would normally possible. As such, a well prepared Mistborn + Steelrunner would have serious augmentations to all their Allomancy, plus super speed.

What's more, because A-pewter increases your physical speed, that can be Stored almost like a lesser form of Compounding, and by increasing your A-pewter's power when Tapping that extra speed, you gain more speed and a comparable level of protection from friction. 

It is so hard to not choose  full Feruchemist with A pewter for me as well. Super speed is fun and exciting but A pewter enhances all of your physical attributes.  

You get to store heightened proprioception into tin. 

You get to shake off some of the negative effects of storing health into gold.  

You get to compound strength minus the massive bulk that comes as a downside to F strength. 

You get to store more speed into steel while lessening the issues that you would feel with it. 

That is just the benefits of burning it to aid your feruchemy storage. Tapping it with any of these things will pseudo compound nearly every aspect of a pewter plus the ability to burn it faster, or slower, with steel. Its easy to think about tapping a few hundred % speed and doubling or tripling your pewtergains... but what if you just wanted it to be a really low and slow burn for some monotonous manual labor where you are paid by the hour?  You could extend out the use of that pewter by storing a bit of speed while burning it low and slow as well. 

.... 

As for a character that I really want to play?  

Warbreaker spoilers: 

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I don't think so. Iron in your bloodstream doesn't just sit by itself, alone. It is bound to other molecules or proteins like Transferrin, or Hemoglobin. It's not a pure element anymore, it isn't Allomantically valid. If a tiny bit of impurity makes an alloy Allomantically useless, then a huge molecule full of other stuff will make bound iron impossible to burn. Look at the structure of Hemoglobin, that's a lot of things bound to that iron:

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Is something going on with aluminum that allows it to see potential investiture as well as kinetic investiture... just not all of it... 

Like aluminum can tell if a metal is allomantically viable... is that only in the person or is it all allomantically viable metals?  If you are an aluminum gnat could you still purge your body of a gut full of other allomantic metals?  

Yet it doesn't instantly burn metalminds so long as they are not being used... even though they are considered allomantically viable in someone who can burn them.  

Would Miles burning aluminum affect his gold minds differently than Wayne burning aluminum because Wayne can't actually burn gold?  I know Brandon said that compounding works because it becomes a new alloy only available to the user so long as they can burn the metal they are storing in.  

Furthermore I assume aluminum would wipe the stormlight out of a person with ease but it doesn't hit biochromatic breath until it is being activated to become kinetic investiture somehow?  

I really want there to be a road map to what it is doing and acting like but it doesn't seem there ever will be one.  It is a metal to suit the narrative more than one to make fast rules.  It also appears all of the other metals in that quadrant act and work differently too. Duralumin / nicrosil only affect what the user is currently burning... but aluminum and chromium target all metal period.  

Edit: come to think of it. If wax is nearly always storing into his iron metalminds the chromium cube should have wiped his stores as well if it follows that pattern of aluminum as well. 

2 hours ago, Argenti said:

I suggest adding Soul Forgery; make a stamp to make them tamed, and even if it doesn't last, reapply it often and you'll slowly shape them.

I hadn't thought of this. You would stamp yourself to have the loyalty of the animal?  Can stamps do something like that or can you stamp the animal? 

Seeing a post by @Trusk'our made me curious about aluminum allomancy and now I am perhaps a bit more confused. 

I feel like all of the other metals in that quadrant have been confirmed to work on all sources of investiture.  But does aluminum?  

The idea of being able to burn aluminum weapons lodged inside of ones self seems really nice but would it burn away any investiture that you may be using as life support at the same time?  Could A aluminum F gold combo become a thing?  

Would burning aluminum burn up and destroy any metal even if you can't burn that specific metal?  Would an aluminum misting theoretically be able to escape any deep lasting wounds if they timed an aluminum burn right as a weapon was being plunged into their being?  

Also... in the case of Vin. When she burnt aluminum in TFE was she wearing her earring at that time or no?  Would burning aluminum destroy any metalminds pierced into your body?  

If you gave aluminum allomancy to a Returned and they burnt the aluminum would they be un-aliving themselves? 

On 3/16/2024 at 11:33 AM, Trusk'our said:

There was a WoB that talked about why on Scadrial would someone want to alloy Lerasium to make Mistings instead of just making yourself Mistborn:

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361/#e11225

Snarlezz

What's the incentive of alloying lerasium and becoming a misting when you could just burn it normal and be a Mistborn?

AltF4WillHelp

My guess is that you'd presumably you'd use less of it? Also, arguably, not every way of using a magic is going to be the most optimal way.

It's probably just a way that lerasium can work. If you alloy it or somehow mix it with things from other systems, it's quite possible you'd end up getting those magics instead, because it'd Connect you more strongly to a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

The replies to this are correct.

I would like to argue in favor of Alloying Lerasium any time you get it;

1. You can choose to divide the power amongst a team of specialists, such as the Wax and Wayne gang, to make them all more competent. Sometimes, having a few individuals who have their strengths further augmented and their weaknesses reduced are just going to be more effective than having a single person who's got more abilities than they'd normally use.

2. You can make new types of "Twinborn", but only with Allomantic powers. These dual-Mistings would have new kinds of Resonances, and if you understood the principles of how they worked ahead of time, you may be able to make some very useful combinations.

3. Even if your only goal with Lerasium was to become a Mistborn, I'd still advocate alloying it, as you get to choose how your power gets routed. Basically, Mistborn have some redundant or nearly redundant powers that aren't all that useful when compared to their counterpart, particularly if that counterpart is an option.

So, for instance, a person who took a Lerasium bead could make sixteen smaller beads that were alloyed to endow powers of their choice. They could forgo aluminum, brass, cadmium, nicrosil, and gold (unless they expect to be able to alloy to Atium as well and become a Fullborn. keep gold and nicrosil in that case).

This gives them five extra powers worth that they get to cherry pick, such as tripling pewter, doubling bronze, and adding a level of power to iron and steel each. This would make them more than your standard Mistborn in a lot of scenarios, as they now have sizable edges in more directly competitive powers.

I think I would definately forgo gold and perhaps nicrosil.  But I really think aluminum would be a really smart one to keep.  In a world where you had access to near limitless metals... or if there was something in the cosmere that could perhaps change grains of sand into metals of your choice... having aluminum would be super valuable.  You could walk around with a full stomach never needing to worry about burning everything or risking metal poisoning. Ingest ludicrous amounts and then purge your system each night before bed.  

As far as why alloy? I think you nailed it with the power options. A bead can split its power ober 16 different metals or you can concentrate all of that power into one metal. 

If a pewter arm born in the final empire is twice as strong as a normal human and Elend was 3-4 times as strong. How much stronger could he have been with pewter if that bead was focused only on giving him pewter?  I don't know if there are caps but I imaging a bead of Lerasium that size would bypass all soft cap and set you squarely at the top end of the hard cap before possibly being wasted.  

Imagine if it did give him 16x the benefit to just that one. If he were 16x stronger than a normal person.  His pewter burn would be more powerful than certain power armors...

I was thinking about my enjoyment of pet classes in RPGs and realized I never really considered it in the cosmere outside of lifeless and potentially creating midnight essence stuff. I would say lightweavers could almost count as well but I am curious on thoughts of viable powers to create a pet class that is more traditional.  

I would like this to be someone who can tame and command animals that are still living.  

My first instict is to go for the duralumin compounder or use some form of emotional allomancy and combine it with F-duralumin.  

I don't know if connection really works that way though.  Do you guys think someone tapping connection could convince a large predator to work for them and serve them?  

Do you think emotional allomancy could work on an aggressive animal?  

If someone owned a large guard dog or axehound and were to command it to attack you are there powers that could allow you to turn the animal back on its owner instead? 

40 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Also, doesn't using Stormlight exhaust the Surgebinder? That would quickly lead to hard limits as well.

Well I believe I remember a pewter drag sort of effect on kaladin when his stormlight ran out. 

But the op thing about stormlight is that while you are using it it heals you of all adverse effects. With the Tower becoming what it is, Radiants can instantly and permanently heal back everything with literally no downside.  There is no risk of soulcasting forever.... I honestly don't even think that savantism is possible with surgebinding soulcasters, only the fabrial users.... even if it is savantism has been reworked a bit to be less punishing than the allomantic physical powers.  Pewter and tin are really the only two powers that true downsides make any sense for anyway. Every other case of savants besides pewter, tin and soulcasting fabrials appear to be 100% to the benefit of the user. 

Do you think that certain materials cost more to soulcast than others? Is aluminum a very expensive material to soulcast in terms of stormlight usage?  

With the suspected infinite stormlight at the tower what industry is ever needed again on Roshar?  This is an infinite production line of everything waiting to happen. Especially since Jasnah can soulcast out of thin air now... just soulcast the air into wax or stone and have other radiants or artisans who can shape it turn it into whatever you want.  

No siege can ever break it down right?  You will never starve while there. Heck lightweavers could make illusions and then soulcast the illusions and air into preshaped.... anything.  

You could do an assembly line of perfectly fit armor via lightweavers creating the perfect illusion and then soulcasting the air into what they are seeing.  

11 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Well, we do know that it's not outside the realm of possibility that a Seeker who was also an Awakener could Command their creations to function to utilize Bronzesense, or at least be able to interpret instructions based on special senses from the Awakener, so maybe a Kandra with the Blessing of Potency could make clothes fight for them be stronger than the norm, though even if possible I'm certain it would require an extra injection of Investiture- more Breaths during the Awakening process- to make it work.

So I'd give a soft yes as to the possibility of this.

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/2/#e145

Questioner

In Awakening an object when you give it the sort of Command like, go get the keys, or something. How does that object perceive the world around it? Since it doesn't have standard human senses, how does it see? How does it touch?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not--

Moderator

Repeat the question.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh… go ahead.

Moderator

The question was, how do Awakened objects actually perceive the world.

Brandon Sanderson

…The closest correlation you have to this is how Inquisitors see.

Questioner

Okay, following up on that say, someone who has-- say someone with bronze who-- a bronze Misting managed to somehow get access to Breath and Awaken would he then be able to tell that object "Hey I sense this Allomancer over there, can you find it".

Brandon Sanderson

That is not outside the realm of possibility.

 

Yup! That way you could have a more mobile force of super strength heavily armored infantrymen.

True. 

Vasher did state that in most cases you spend more Breath than necessary to Awaken something as its usually not human shaped, but Kalad's Phantoms are in direct contrast to this, as they needed an extra injection of Breath to truly function.

What if it was really, really humanlike though? 

Assuming that the strength boost didn't require a significantly large amount of Investiture (which, as we established just before it's likely that it actually does, unfortunately), then if you were to make a suit that mimicked human anatomy, then it should be easier to Awaken, thus making it cheaper Breath wise.

Yeah, it would have to be in order to be Awakened properly. The "muscles" and such of the suit would all be woven together into the same object so as to function as a whole.

Hmm, if it proved too expensive to perform the 25 Breath cost, perhaps it would be better to take your previous suggestion and add thicker, stronger ropes, forgoing some of the "humanity" of the suit to make something bigger, bulkier, and stronger. Something more like a Koloss-sized mech suit made primarily of coiled rope for maximum protection and power?

You'd have to drop your expectation for numbers on such a tactic, but you could have one or two really powerful Awakened juggernauts for your army. 

I have held the imagery of an awakener with some form of spandex skin suit or the equivalent through more natural materials, rolled up and carried around in pockets. 

If you could pull one of these out and give it Vashers command I imagine it would do quite well at aiding you. Compound that with a talented grappler or wrestlers skillset and you could have great options for easily deployable fighting force.  

I say grappler and wrestler because this would be useful without needing to carry weapons for them and keep it more hush hush. Although it could be argued that it is the same end goal as throwing ropes to wrap up your enemies. Potential advantages of it though... you could do more for these suits to reduce cost than you can for a rope. 

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

Hm... the OP original idea is to see how effectively you can make Awakened minions from Type III Awakened objects? I think there's a few sliding scales to consider. Sure, most probably have this memorized but I'll throw out the Laws regarding Awakening out anyway. The Law of Biochromatic Parallelism and The Law of Comparability indicate that the closer a host is a living shape and form the easier it is to Awaken and that once Awakened they perform essentially the same function regardless of the amount of Breaths used. Awakening requires Breath, a valid Command, visualization, and color.

• First sliding scale is adjacency to life and retrievability of Breath. At one end of the scale is a fresh corpse ready to be made Lifeless with a single Breath, at the other is objects like rope that do not have the shape of life and can take on the order of hundreds of Breaths to Awaken. Now there should be an optimum where if you were to take a corpse and slowly modify it to no longer resemble life that eventually there would be a sweet spot where a minimal number of Breaths are used to Awaken the object and still have them be retrievable - assuming all other optimizations like using the Awakener's hair as a focus are already in use.  
• Second sliding scale is cost and durability.  At one end of the scale is one Breath Lifeless with many of the same failure points as the original deceased, at the other end is Nightblood who chips Honorblades. Basically, life can be fragile and the more steps removed from life the more flexibility you have to reduce failure points. A skeleton can be Awakened as a Lifeless and no longer has to worry about blood loss and severed muscles - but the bones still have to be fixed in place and cost more to Awaken. Awakened cloth can be much stronger than Lifeless muscle as well, so budget Lifeless isn't always better. The optimum is dependent on the expected opposing force. You'll prepare differently if you expect to fight regular soldiers, fliers, swords, or guns, etc. Life means organic and organic means carbon-based so in many cases post-Awakening fireproofing treatment seems prudent. Retrievability means nothing if the enemy captures the fallen Awakened clothing scraps or can fully destroy them and their Breaths.
• Third sliding scale is Command complexity. This next is hypothetical and unconfirmed but I think it makes sense. The concept is that Breath used to Awaken has two methods to remember and execute Commands - utilizing the mind of the deceased as is the case of the Lifeless, or the Investiture of the Breath itself gaining a small measure of autonomous intelligence. The more complex the Command and the closer to life the object has to behavior, I would guess the more Breaths are required when not using a deceased brain. Hence I would guess "Grab when Thrown" to need less Breaths than "Fight for me as if you were me". So due to the Law of Comparability, more Breath doesn't necessarily mean more strength, but I would guess more complex requires more Breath.
• Fourth sliding scale is quantity and quality. No surprises here, Breaths are a finite resource and making the call between 5 heavily enhanced Awakened fighters and 20 budget Awakened fighters is always a consideration - particularly depending on the average retrievability of the Breaths of fallen fighters.
• Fifth parameter is resource availability. If you only have five sets of armor and no corpses, then you might as well make 5 heavily enhanced fabric fighters even though in other circumstances a Lifeless army of 100 could be more effective.

I think you could make some pretty powerful soldiers this way and still have the majority of your Breaths be retrievable, but it would need much firmer numbers than what we have to know how effective this would be compared to other options for an Awakener. If your goal is to survive a major war and hopefully get back home with most of your 5th or 6th Heightening to live out your days indefinitely, then figuring out how to do it effectively without Lifeless is a worthwhile venture.

My question here is that, thinking on line of a full body suit, could you stitch in the same scars you have to the body suit to reduce costs more or would they have to be cuts and tears where your scars are?  

You could easily infuse these suits with some of your own hair and even blood and allow them to dry.  With stitched scars you could have a body suit tailored to your dimensions and with scars resembling your own as well as soak a bit of blood into and around those scars.  I cant think of a better alternative to making something resemble the awakener than all of that... heck stitch the scars with your own hair. 

Back to @Trusk'our point, if you used this technique you could also armor your creations with aluminum for a lighter option that would also block magical attacks. While it would be more prone to deformation and perhaps offer less protection than typical steel armor to a lifeless, to the skinsuit I believe that the advantage of hollow fabric is that it would be less prone to losing mobility through damaged armor. 

My personal favorite army of protectors has to be a pack of whitespine lifeless. Pour hot wax over the lifeless and then as it hardens have them run and move around. What you would be left with is a perfectly fit coating of wax that could be soulcast into aluminum for a perfect, tight fit to make your lifeless army not only terrifying and coated in natural armor but now it is shardproof and investiture proof. 

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

More like Third Heightening (it was all of Vivenna's storage), and a very complex Command (perfected through practice). Warbreaker Ch 56:

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“You need to run,” Vasher said, wiggling his hands free from their rope bonds. “Get back to your people, tell them not to fight the Lifeless. They need to flee through the northern passes, hide in the highlands. Do not fight or bring other kingdoms into the war.”

Vivenna glanced back at Denth, who was smacking Tonk Fah back to consciousness. Then she closed her eyes. “Your Breath to mine,” she said, drawing back the Breath from her hand tassels, adding it to the large amount she still held from before. She reached out, placing her hand on Vasher.

“Vivenna…” he said.

“My life to yours,” she said. “My Breath become yours.”

Her world became a thing of dullness. Beside her, Vasher gasped, then began to convulse at the bestowal of Breath. Denth stood up, spinning.

“You do it, Vasher,” Vivenna whispered. “You’ll be far better at it than I will be.”

<Snip>

Unfortunately, there were a lot of men. Maybe too many to fight. Vasher cursed, spinning between them, dropping another one. He bent down, slapping his hand against the waist of a fallen soldier, touching both shirt and pants, looping his finger around the colored inner undershirt.

“Fight for me, as if you were me,” he Commanded, draining the man’s undershirt completely grey. Vasher spun, blocking a sword strike. Another came from the side, and another. He couldn’t block them all.

A sword flashed in the air, blocking a weapon that would have hit Vasher. The dead man’s shirt and trousers, having pulled themselves free, stood holding a blade. They struck, as if controlled by an invisible person inside, blocking and attacking with skill.

Annotatins to Ch 56:

 

So, she had the breath she used to awken her cloak, shirt and leggings (ch 53), plus what she recovered from Tonk Fah's cloak, and gave all of that to Vasher before he fell from the window. 

I feel like the "fight for me as if you were me" would only be marginally useful to most people (and would need about a century of practicee to perfect), and separate awakenings like Vi does in Ch 53 would generally be more useful and allow a broader application base, as the situation needs:

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It was frightening, but she knew it was true. She stood up and walked over to Vasher’s pack. She pulled out a wrinkled overshirt and a pair of leggings. Both had tassels hanging from the cuffs.

Vivenna put them on. Vasher’s spare cloak followed. It smelled like him, and was cut—like his other one—into the vague shape of a man. She understood, at least, one of the reasons his clothing looked so tattered.

She pulled out a couple of colorful handkerchiefs. “Protect me,” she Commanded the cloak, imagining it grabbing people who tried to attack her. She placed a hand on the sleeve of the shirt.

“Upon call,” she Commanded, “become my fingers and grip that which I must.” She’d only heard Vasher give the Command a couple of times, and she still wasn’t quite sure how to visualize what she wanted the shirt to do. She imagined the tassels closing around her hands as she had seen them do for Vasher.

She Awakened the leggings, commanding them to strengthen her legs. The leg tassels began to twist, and she raised each foot in turn, letting the tassels wrap around the bottoms. Her stance felt firmer, the leggings pulled tight against her skin.

Finally, she tied on the sword Vasher had given her. She still didn’t know how to use it, though she could hold it properly. It felt right to bring it. Then she left.

 

I am really curious how that "fight for me as if you were me" would work if the awakener was also some form of invested being?  

If you were a pewter arm or tapping a large amount of speed or fortune while making that command would the clothing follow the command to move and act the way you could while tapping or burning your metals or just your base state?  

Edit: @Trusk'our what about a kandra with potency? Or any hemalurgic spikes altering the base stats?  Do you think that the clothing would work better for a kandra or even a human with iron spikes granting increased strength and speed? 

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Yeah, an amplifier is the right term. 

Not really true, took me a while to find this quote - WoK ch 28:

I remembered it being an equalizer. It could be that by the time you are talking 10x normal human strength there just isn't a noticeable difference between user strength to begin with. Perhaps a pewter burner could be enhanced more.  If it so be that the movement speed of the plate is limited to the ability of the user inside of it... and each step in your run is boosted by the plate then I would say a pewter burner sprinting in plate may actually see a larger gap than the strength itself. 

If strength of plate wearer becomes 10x normal and strength of a pewter arm is 11x normal the difference is such a small amount. It may not look like anything. 

But if someone with pewter can run 20-30%faster than normal and you put that into plate the plate would enhance the strength of each stride and I think it would be an even bigger difference in plate. 

7 hours ago, therunner said:

I'd say that no, it is not.

Shardplate is meant to be powered armor analogue, and those simply use their own strength.

This is how I had always viewed it.  I saw another post where someone said something along the lines of "plate doesn't give +20 to strength it just sets strength to 20."  I agreed with that thought though 20 is a lowball answer. 

1 hour ago, Duxredux said:

So... for strength and speed enhancement I'm juggling this back and forth trying to remember old physics lessons and I'm leaning towards that Plate isn't significantly additive... or more appropriately that most people aren't significantly additive to Plate. Dalinar and Adolin talk about the equalizing effect of Plate where Adolin in his prime is at equivalent strength to his 50+ year old father when equipped as Shardbearers. Look at it this way: Shardplate moves and supports it's own mass. When a Shardbearer easily swings a massive Shardhammer onto their shoulder, their muscles are not doing any of the work to support the Shardhammer itself, the only work they do is moving their body into that stance. In order to apply more force than the Shardplate, you personally have to be able to accelerate the enormous mass of the Plate itself beyond where the Plate is providing assistance starting where the high resistive forces have defined the maximum limits of Plate. Basically for you to add any helpful force you'd have to already be strong enough to move around in unpowered Plate. I'd need someone who has done physics more recently than a decade ago to tell me if the force assistance compensates for the added mass for someone strong enough to walk around in unpowered Plate, but my knee jerk response is that it won't help, and that basically it's not additive and flat out worse than not wearing it all for force added. 

Here's an example: a Wall Street Journal documentary on the self-propelled bicycle world record of 184 mph (296 kph) set by Denise Mueller-Korenek. To be clear, she was not unassisted, she had an extremely fast specialized car driving directly in front that she was drafting behind using it as a wind break - but she was able to otherwise maintain 184 mph without fighting air resistance. From a Steelrunner wearing Plate perspective, you're asking if the cyclist were to pedal even faster and try to push the car to go even faster - which is trying to accelerate the mass of car and a larger surface area at the extremely high resistive forces at play... and I just don't think it's going to help. The one caveat is that Plate is presumably more heat resistive than a Steelrunner, so if you have that much power to spend, then maybe you can go faster at an exorbitantly expensive cost with other magics to assist you.

That said, Plate is an amplifier in that it takes it's cues for how fast to move, how hard to hit from the Shardbearer, so a Shardbearer will get tired eventually, depending on the damage possible before the Plate itself runs low for power-assist. Personal enhancement of this variety, be it a Blessing of Potency, A-Pewter, or Stormlight itself that enhances stamina will mitigate that. 

As for other powers, if it's not personally your own Plate gained via the Nahel Bond through Oaths, don't count on it working through Plate - and no idea even if it is your own Plate. Szeth as the Assassin in White never kept dead Plate as it would have interfered with his Surgebinding and that's at least in the same Honor/Cultivation magic family. In the second time we see the Starfalls vision, the Radiant Dalinar replaces apparently had to dismiss her armor so that the accompanying 4th+ Ideal Windrunner could Lash her, so even for trusted allies this interference remains. No idea the extent of interference for your own personally bonded Plate spren, maybe Hoid will answer this for us some day. 

I really like this point. Pewter may not add more speed with plate than without it. But the benefit to pewter in plate is that the user would never feel fatigue so long as they have pewter to spare. The strength benefits of pewter likely not shine through plate (perhaps with duralumin it could)  

As for F pewter I sort of think the plate would limit it as well since it would be harder to swell up and gain the bulk. 

Do any other enhancements help shardplate? Or does Shardplate operate at its own peak always only?  

I see shardplate being over half a ton as a really neat thing but I don't know if that would limit its capabilities?  The power in the shardplate is what allows it to do what it does right?  Without the leggings you couldn't move just wearing the upperhalf most likely. So I wonder where plate negates other abilities and where it doesn't. 

Arm wrestling plate only vs a pewterarm in plate vs brute ferring in plate? 

When Dalinar is racing in Way of Kings... if one of the plate wearing contestants were also a pewter arm or steel runner would they have an advantage? 

Could a plate wearing iron ferrings tap a few thousand pounds and the plate be enough to support the weight and allow them to move and fight as usual?  

I imagine dead plate would cut off all lines and thus steel and iron allomancy would be useless in it.  It likely would also block the emotional metals as it protects the user so long as they have the helm on. 

Would you still be able to see atium shadows from inside of plate?  

24 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

My guess for this one is that he was intuitively and instinctively reading the air pressure currents created by the opposing Shardbearer. Kind of like Spook fighting as a Savant, but only with the air pressure sensory boost and without the heartbeat monitoring level of hearing.

As for Ham vs Kal when it comes to Shardbearers... well we see what Szeth accomplishes against squads of guards with Halfshards and Shardbearers as a lone aggressor, going against the likes of Gavilar or Adolin. Granted, a lone aggressor using abilities long forgotten over millennia that those Shardbearers' training hasn't accounted for. Ham's enhancements fit into a format that standard training can compensate for, none of this gravity manipulation and adhesion business.

 

Not saying that this is what you were implying, but I wouldn't put Warforms equivalent to a Pewterarm in difficulty as the Listeners are in their own way as easily manipulated as an army of Koloss. The Alethi army comprised of regular humans were regularly defeating the Warform Listeners through better equipment and disciplined battle formations in what seemed to be even bouts. They only fight in pairs, they're easily goaded by disfigurement to their corpses, and they preferentially will not attack the wounded, and Kaladin noted and relied heavily on that predictability.

I do think Ham is an incredible fighter in his own way, though because most of what he accomplishes is off-screen, he has a self-effacing attitude as a leader, and he's fighting alongside Vin, Kelsier, and Elend making him naturally overshadowed. He survived for a ridiculously long time in some horrible battles as a frontline general fighting massive armies of Koloss with only the weaker healing afforded to Pewter. In a funny way, Ham is used to fighting incredibly powerful tireless giant soldiers with massive swords that will kill you no matter what you're wearing if they get off a good hit, though never one who used that powerset to the full capacity. It's like watching the 3rd or 4th place runner at the Olympics waaaay behind the first place and while I know he's behind Vin, it doesn't really give me a scale as to how he would compare to non-contemporaries (trying to remember if any Radiant or Warform displays the vertical jump that Vin has when sparring with Ham). Give Kal the Surges and that's pretty unfair, but I'm not sure who would win between a Pewter loaded Ham and a 2nd Ideal Kaladin without surges.

Basically... Ham vs Kaladin pre-Shards doesn't look like an apples to apples comparison to me. They weren't afforded the same opportunities and they didn't fight in similar battles. I'd leave that one to Brandon.

I like that you point out that Ham was front lines against Koloss armies. One hit and you are dead regardless of if it is a shardblade or a koloss blade. 

I know that shardbearers may be quicker and even stronger than Koloss but a 12 foot koloss swinging a koloss blade is probably at an even better reach advantage than a shardbearer as well. And Ham had to dance between those reach advantages while facing 1 hit kills without flying or atium or even some 6th sense telling him what was coming. 

I think this is a fair estimation of what it means to say that pewter has enhanced reactionspeed as well.

Take that and pair it with any kind of 6th sense and it would be off the charts. 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

It was clearly not Atium, but Kaladin in the arena does describe feelings that are oddly reminiscent of the atium, what with feeling like he could easily dodge with his eyes closed, like if he knew where the blade will strike.

Not really, Kaladin is among the best fighters in the Cosmere, Vin-equivalent for Stormlight.
Ham, not so much.

Kaladin defeated Shardbearer without Stormlight (or with only very miniscule amounts), feat that no one else did.
Mainly with Stormlight enhancements he fought of multiple Singer War-Pairs, i.e. Warforms who are comparable to Pewter burner.

I think that Kaladin in the area at the 2nd oath and Kaladin vs a shardbearer years earlier before Syl even proved to be more than a pesky windspren are two very different people with very different skill sets. 

If Kal was able to do it before he knew about syl and any access to stormlight I think an enhanced Ham would do fine. 

We will just have to agree to disagree on that one I think. Kaladin may have been using stormlight in tiny amounts at that time but I don't think he was dancing around that blade effortlessly.

21 minutes ago, Through The Living Glass said:

I think the title speaks for itself.

Most of y'all probably knew about the Cosmere and how the books are connected either before or when you started reading them, but does anyone have any fun stories on how you came to find out?

Here's mine (also some spoilers for Oathbringer and Warbreaker):

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So about two years ago I had just finished Oathbringer for the first time. I had Warbreaker on my bed next to me, so almost as soon as I finished Oathbringer I was already reading another Sanderson book. I had absolutely no idea that they were connected, but when I opened Warbreaker and saw the name Vasher, some part of my brain recognized it. That prompted me to open Oathbringer again and, sure enough, Nightblood kept talking about someone named Vasher! As you can probably guess, my mind was absolutely blown. I read through Warbreaker a bit more (lo and behold, there was Nightblood), then got on my computer, found the Coppermind, and almost died when I found out how many Sanderson books I had read were actually connected.

And the rest is history, as they say.

Anyone else find out about the Cosmere on their own?

I sort of cheated. Had a friend tell me about the Metallic Arts and read the mistborn trilogy that week back in 2011. Then a few years later after getting my whole family to read it, I heard about how he was doing some cameos from book to book hidden in them... 

Then I cheated. Googled the word worldhopper found the name Hoid and discovered the 17th shard and coppermind. 

It drove me to read Warbreaker which is my favorite now, and then dabble into Stormlight. 

I am a sucker for the worldhoppers and if it wasn't for their appearances on Roshar (mainly Vasher) I probably wouldn't keep reading that series. 

So long story short. I cheated and the only way I can say I stumbled upon it organically is that one of my pals who reads them mentioned a character who is "collecting stories from each world".  So that was my big hint.  It wasn't super difficult to figure out past that. 

Body- Tensoon

Skillset- Vasher

Powerset- Vin at the end of HoA just before Ascension. 

Item- a soulcaster with garnet, amethyst, and emerald or heliodor (depending which is best for food production) to create a boatload of silver projectiles and provisions. 

I really wanted to take a Kandra with feruchemy as well but the feruchemists we have seen on screen know nothing of the best metals. A feruchemist with all 16 is probably the best survival build out there. 

Not sure if kandra are allowed as they technically are a powerset but I would make the same argument for a Returned which is used. 

I also made an assumption that I will have access to stormlight often enough for the soulcaster to work as no stormlight also kills the radiants minus bondsmith with the ability to open perpendicularities. 

Question about shades... as I have never read the book. Do you think bronze would hear them?  Would copper help to hide oneself from them?  

Vin with a soulcaster and a silver koloss blade and silver coins/ ball bearings could probably last a while there i think... I honestly don't know though. 

Awesome.  Thanks for these. 

29 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Because the whole basis of the sphere-Gem economy is based on their usefulness to active Soulcasting, I believe it can be stored in external gems and siphoned into the soulcaster actively, assuming that nation knows the tricks (tuning forks etc).  But without that it would mean those big chasmfield emeralds would have to be cut down to bracelet sizes and continuously swapped into the Soulcaster, which limits more but may be what is happening in Alethkar most of the time.    

Ah. So can you take a soulcaster base and have a boatload of gems and swap them out to use whatever essence you want?  Or does each soulcaster limit you to the essence it was made for only and you are limited to using those associated gems only but can change them out for more of the same.  

Limiting you to the soulcaster you have but allowing wealth to determine the amount of use?  

Using the fabrial soulcasters costs stormlight. Do we know how much they can soulcast with one of them?  Does the soulcaster only get the stormlight that the 3 main gems it holds gives? Or can you fuel a soulcasting fabrial with other gems?  

Basically is a broke joke with a soulcaster and no extra spheres able to soulcast the same volume as someone with a soulcaster who has access to a wealth of infused spheres?  

If you can use other spheres to soulcast with the soulcaster then does that make single essence soulcasters the lesser of the possibilities? Or does the advantage of a soulcaster with 3 of the same gems come from being able to soulcast 3x as much per highstorm?  

Which is more valuable a soulcaster with more of one gem or 3 seperate gems? 

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Well... let's do a bit of loose math with some internet calculators to get a rough idea of how much force we're talking here. In TLM Wax was able to launch himself while carrying Wayne on his back in a single impulse to a boat traveling from Bilming to Elendel. The distance between Bilming and Elendel is about 100 miles based on the in book map. To aim low, let's assume to boat was only 30 miles away from Bilming and as they were at an elevated position on a tower probably near the coast, I'll say they were about 500 feet in the air. Reeeaaally loose numbers. For context, the fastest bullet according to Wikipedia has a muzzle velocity of 1422 m/s.

Using this calculator, assuming a 45 degree angle launch, starting 500 feet above the target, taking into account gravity, and to hit a target 30 miles away, Wax and Wayne would need to be moving about 1550 mph. Let's assume that Wax shed all of his weight prior to launch and is only carrying himself, Wayne, and their weapons, so... let's say Wax launched 250 pounds of mass. That's what, 27,000,000 joules of kinetic energy? Toss that into this calculator for bullet kinetic energy, assume a 140 grain round, and if you apply 27,000,000 joules of force you'll need... a velocity of 254,000 feet per second, or 173,000 mph which... makes me question my math. That's almost 7 times faster than what you would need for escape velocity. That's probably fast enough that if you fired it horizontally it still wouldn't land on the planet, and that's just Wax with a Duralumin spike. If we add in air resistance, Wax retaining some weight, or assuming the ship is farther out then that force just gets higher.

I'll need ballistics people to tell me if I got that right or not, as well as how much force would actually be transferred to the target or if it would just leave a nice neat bullet hole going straight through with relatively little energy transferred to the rest of the target's body. So... I'll say that a Fullborn could fire a bullet faster than they would ever have a practical need to do so.

If I was a sniper Fullborn with a single surge, I might take Gravitation actually. I couldn't fire them out of a conventional gun, but Lashing the bullet towards my target before Pushing on them would let me ignore drop from Gravity entirely and that takes a significant variable out of the aiming equation.

Your case for Wax and Wayne jump is interesting but I think Iron screws with it a lot more. Momentum is conserved thus tapping a massive weight and duralumin pushing would build a TON of momentum... then shedding that weight would actually cause you to accelerate as well while flying. 

If I remember correctly the support beams bent in as well. Any crumple in the structure being pushed off means there was even more initial energy that was lost in that push as well.

The only reason I want to blame Iron for the feat instead of duralumin steel is because it seems more consistent with what we have seen outside of Vin running on the mists and ascending. 

The conservation of momentum seems more viable as in theory every time you half the weight you double the speed. We know Wax can store millions of pounds worth of his own weight to use.  In fact if Wax is 180lbs and stores 33% of that all the time then he is storing 59lbs all the time. Lets round it out to 60lbs.

If Wax stores 60lbs per second for 18 hours a day he stores 3,888,000 lbs for use later. Tapping that much... if you have the anchors to make a push and get airborne (which duralumin with steel could do) you would take off with so much momentum and it would carry you further than a high velocity alone.  

That thought is just to say that I don't think Wax's jump accurately shows what could happen to a bullet. Wax can hack and gain speed after the push is over with thanks to his iron feruchemy. The bullet can't. And there is only so much of a push that you can do on a bullet before it is beyond your ability to push it more. Where Wax could still be manipulating his jump well outside of steel pushing range. 

1 hour ago, therunner said:

Kaladin is weird (what with the pseudo-atium effects)

Do we have anything to substantiate atium? I believe he likely had some stormlight in his system without realizing it. I don't think I remember anything stating atium like future sight. Stormlight perfects you. Pewter enhances you.  I will concede with nothing to block the blade a single block or parry action would be death to a pewterarm. 

But Ham vs Kal when beating the shardbearer goes to Ham anytime. 

1 hour ago, Colors said:

I know, I don't disagree with your general point, just saying most Allomancers don't actually have steel sight.

Btw, could you imagine an Awakener with access to spores. Fashion these little cotton pouches like tea bags, have little pieces of string dangling off them to act like legs and command them to try and scurry into the eye holes by any means necessary.

A few crimson spores or zephyr spores and boom...their head is gone.

That sounds pretty legit as well a few spores carried into them that way. I wonder how big spores actually are?  

Other aether related thoughts. 

Would midnight essence be able to be turned into a swarm of insects?  I feel like the midnight essence creations have some ability to act on their own but would a swarm of midnight aether bugs released from an aetherbound be able to be directed and controlled to any workable extent? 

10 minutes ago, Colors said:

Blue lines would only apply to Steelpushers, Steel Inquisitors or Mistborn though. 

A Pewterarm doesn't have steel sight.

I get that. It still stands that metalborn are not flamboyant in their mere existance. Shardplate and shardblades stand out immediately. Shardblades scream danger no matter what.  Shardplate screams tank no matter what. 

Allomancers and metalborn whisper of ordinary and mundane. 

To supposed that a shardbearer would know of their opponents abilities because the opponent knows how dangerous the shardbearer is just seems disingenuous.  

We all know that the shardbearer is a dangerous individual. Like armies unto themselves. Why should we assume they can look upon and unarmored individual and place netting to stop bugs in their visor thanks to knowing the opponent. They may be apprehensive seeing someone stepping up to fight them without shards of their own. But there is nothing about awakeners (minus an aura that nearly noone notices on Zahel for 4 books) or metalborn that would give away the fact that they may be dangerous. 

A shardbearer is a walking talking warning sign of caution and danger. 

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Sure they have improved grace, but that is not why they are dangerous, the increased strength, resilience and ability to power through damage is. 

Against Shardbearer, Pewterarm is well...worse in everything with exception of grace.

Shardbearer has to hit Pewterarm once, and it is game over.
Sure, some Pewter arm might do it, but it is basically one in a hundred occurrence.

Pewterarms are slower, weaker, less durable, and are only bit more dexterous. And reflexes we have not way to say which is faster, but both are improved over baseline human.

We do see both Pewterarms and Shardbearers get hit by regular humans, so both can hit each other, but only one will lose after single hit.

Shardbearer also has enhanced mobility and reflexes, so Pewter arm will have less of an advantage than they would have against regular opponent.
And Shardbearer has to land a single good hit, once Pewterarm loses control of any single limb it is basically game over.

Problem with a lot of these tactics is that sure, they can win against Shardbearer, but they can pull it off maybe once in a hundred attempts, when everything goes right; or if they have advantage of prior knowledge of their opponent.

If we grant similar knowledge of their opponent to Shardbearer, so they too can prepare, it will start skewing back drastically. E.g. Awakened swarm, just put metallic net in the eyeslit, perhaps some Aluminum alloy or silver. Suddenly Awakener is in trouble.

I don't think it takes a bunch of knowledge and understanding of a shardbearers powers to understand that you can't just stab them and bash them to death. 

An allomancer will know something is wrong immediately when a big armored and massive blade wielding opponent shows up but the blue lines don't.

There doesn't need to be the word shard in front only plate to know that you should only target the open spots. Only Hollywood thinks someone in full plate can be treated like someone not in full plate. To assume that if someone knows they can't stab through or break plate due to more knowledge and not the fact that the shardbeaer is wearing armor is silly. To compare it to the shardbearer knowing that an awakener will choose to use a swarm of insects is kind of laughable. 

Anyone who sees someone in full plate armor, magical or not, is going to know that they can't win this fight traditionally. If you are an awakener you treat that fight differently whether you know about shards or not. 

A person in full plate can't just look at an awakener and know what they have. 

Assuming they know the oppositions strengths weaknesses and tactics when you are comparing a 100% visible and 100% relatable tank of the times to someone who has no armor and may or may not even carry a weapon is silly. 

The shardbearer screams danger and hard to kill from all angles. Awakeners and mistborn are sleeper builds with very little to give away what they can and cannot do. Its totally apples to oranges thinking they should be on the same level of knowledge ahead of time. 

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

Interesting. To what extent am I bound by the First Contract, particularly the no homicide clause? If I can't kill anyone and do not have to form contracts on location (since they can't pay me in Atium), then I assume I am functioning as a spy/information gatherer. Very similar to hoid without wit's build but for different stated reasons. I want Blessing of Presence for memory storage, Duralumin compounding with 2 spikes so that I can quickly form Connections to new places and quickly learn and retain new cultures and languages (assuming he trusts me enough to divulge those whoppers of secrets which by no means a given). I'm going to have to use these abilities to get very good at approximating the appearance of native peoples as I explore as I don't anticipate finding random corpses or having a master to kill people for me.

If homicide is on the table, then I'm taking Potency, compounded Steel and a stack of Atium spikes to collect as many powers as I can to bring back home for further study.

Yeah I was assuming being one of his personal Kandra you wouldn't be bound to the contract. He would use you in a unique way and you would have no rules other than to fulfill the mission. I don't know what that would be. I like the variety in options. 

I am a believer in the blessing of presence no matter the mission. If I have other spikes available to me I figure there are other options for boosting strength.  Allomantic pewter would be a hard one to pass up for conflict resolution as well as Feruchemical bendalloy. Honestly I feel like those 2 would make an already difficult beast to kill nearly impossible. Bendalloy gets to double dip and act similar to gold for kandra. You lose a limb?  Just tap a bunch of food and grow it back before your enemies eyes... but what about bones... 

I think the 3rd spike would have to be something that can grow or act in for bones. I honestly don't know if atium can steal anything that would work for that but if aetherbinding could be stolen any of the more solid aethers would be perfect for building a skeleton on the go. Especially with bendalloy. If I couldn't steal anything to make bones I might have to go with a divine breath and replace bendalloy for either F duralumin or A copper depending on which one can best be used to cover and hide the biochromatic aura. 

5th heightening passive effects are just so good and all of that investiture would make you highly resistant to invested attacks. 

Edit: and naturally I would want an aluminum truebody.  I think truebody option would be open for this character.  Don't limit yourself to just a truebody but nothing beats a harder aluminum alloy that can stop shardsblades...