Windrunner VS Steel Inquisitor

[Cstryon]

Still new to the forums, sorry if this is in the wrong place...

 

So I'm obsessed with Character VS Character battles, but rather than someone specific, I decided to be vague. A nameless Windrunner, with a Shardblade, and skills similar to Szeth (including that hands only martial art) VS a Steel inquisitor, who was originally an Iron Misting, with round about as many spikes as Marsh. The inquisitor would of course have duel obsidian axes, and plenty of Allomantic metal stores. The Windrunner has plenty of available storm light.

 

Some rules, Shardblades are allomantically inert, so no pushing/pulling that. Both are aware of each others powers. Compounding Gold can heal a shard blade wound, but takes a lot to do so.

Forget that bloodlust non sense, for what ever reason, they have to kill each other, both are equally experienced (in their on ways considering different worlds of course). Both are skilled warriors and will face very bad odds in the name of winning.

 

Setting? Not really sure... a city, at night, with elements of architecture from both worlds. The Inquisitor has some coins, but not many.

[Balefire]

Step 1 Lash inquisitor to ground a bajillion times

 

Step 2 Kill inquisitor with shardblade

 

Step 3 Piss on inquisitor's corpse

Edited March 10, 2014 by Balefire

[Kyzkle]

I'm not actually sure that an inquisitor could be lashed, seeing as they've already been heavily invested through hemalurgy and their natural allomancy. I could be wrong about the mechanics of lashings, however. Regardless, shardblades make KR some of the most powerful people in the cosmere, so I'd say that they've pretty much got the win in any matchup. The inquisitor would burn through years of health constantly because they have no way of blocking a shardblade, and their strength, speed, and healing could be nearly matched by stormlight.

 

There only scenario I could see the inquisitor winning is if hemalurgic spikes could block a shardblade. I'm not sure if this would happen, but it would even the fight considerably. Add in a metal buckle or two on the windrunner and abilities limited to Szeth's in tWoK, and the inquisitor would have a chance.

 

As a side note, it occurs to me that Roshar is one of the most powerfully magical places in the cosmere. The KR, even as early as the second oath, are almost universally more powerful that magic users from almost any other planet. A lerasium mistborn or a VERY well-prepared awakener of one of the upper hightenings could probably match them, but I doubt anything but an inquisitor with near the maximum number of spikes (starting from a very powerful mistborn) could hope to match a full Radiant with a set of shards.

 

The only drawbacks to the KR is that shards can technically be wielded by anyone, so most of their (fair) fights would be against other shardbearers. The monsters of Roshar are also proportionally powerful, so they're really not better off than any other planet.

[Cstryon]

What we do know of hemalurgic spikes doesn't say they will block shardblades, nor do we know if they can't be lashed. I'll admit, I'm not done with Words of Radiance* but as I understand, you have to touch something to lash it right? So that means the Windrunner has to actually get close to the Inquisitor. Remember, he's got a lot of spikes, which means it's very likely he's compounding several types of metals. As soon as he see's that this Windrunner is not afraid of his obviously inhuman appearance, he's not going to just stand there while the Windrunner comes attacking.

The Windrunner's most obvious advantage is the shardblade. Large blade easily wielded by an otherwise (considering how intimidating Inquisitors are) normal looking warrior. The inquisitor isn't going to simply let himself get hit, even if he didn't think anything was special about the blade, it's a huge sword carried easily, obviously the guy must have powers, maybe a Pewter Misting? So the inquisitor will be on the defensive if the Windrunner goes in for any lashings.

Now if it did come down to hand and hand, assuming the Windrunner is faster than the Inquisitor, once the inquisitor realizes he's being lashed (getting heavy, having trouble moving, obviously something is different with me), one Pewter enhanced, maybe even compounded punch would end that. Assuming the Windrunner doesn't KO with a Pewter compounded punch, he'll have to heal after that, and will use a lot of stormlight to do so. That might be enough to lose the lashings, if not, the inquisitor is still Pewter compounded and not quite feeling the lashings.

Remember Miles in AoL compounding gold? Sure there may not have been a shardblade involved, but I'd argue that healing like that would fix a shard wound. Maybe using a lot of reserves, but he should be able to survive enough hits to realize he needs to not get touched by that blade, time to get creative.

 

I'm not saying the Inquisitor would live/win, but I don't think that this would be that easy for the Windrunner. Remember, he's only got the blade, not a set of shards.

I guess to make this a little bit more of an even fight, would powers should the Inquisitor have received from the spikes to reach a point that you guys would feel this is fair? I'm already thinking, both f and a gold, iron, and pewter. But is that not enough? Should we establish exactly what this inquisitor is powered with before we try to pit him against this windrunner?

 

Told you I was obsessed .

 

*I am almost done, if you have spoilers, you know, just be considerate of anyone that hasn't finished yet and maybe warn of spoilers before posting. Me personally, I can deal with spoilers, as long as I don't get too many. And usually it's my fault I read it.

[Tempus]

A few things:

 

Most importantly, I think - Steel Inquistors generally did not have feruchemical abilities. During the time that the steel ministry was active, the majority did not have feruchemy, and were unaware of compounding. Even once they began to take feruchemical powers, only a few learned to compound. If you're talking generic Windrunner versus generic Steel Inquisitor, I'd suggest that compounding is for sure out of the equation, and feruchemy is probably out as well.

 

It would be probably be difficult to lash a burning allomancer. Lashing shardplate (much like pushing on metals attached to skin) is very difficult, but doable - it's theorized that the lashing must have more investiture (power) than the invested thing you are trying to lash. And then it seems to decrease the power of the lashing by the difference. It seems that it's much easier to gather investiture from Stormlight than metals, so that might not be as big a disadvantage as suspected.

 

The Lashings do indeed require touch. The reverse lashing would still be useful against pushed projectiles, in the same way that Kaladin uses it to deflect arrows.

 

The Shardblade seems to sever the spiritual link between a person and their limb. It's reasonably likely that increase of investiture in a person could repair the link, at the cost of the power required. That would mean any allomancy. It's almost certain that a Gold ferring could heal it.

 

One thing to note is that basic abilities increase with Stormlight, and possibly all investiture. Brandon has suggested that the person's cognitive idea of themselves affects healing and ability enhancement when stormlight investiture is involved - how they view themselves. It's likely that ANY individual holding stormlight is at least as strong, fast, etc as an feruchemist tapping strength, speed, healing, and other physical things. An example: even Shallan can fall from large heights and be unscathed when holding just a bit of stormlight. Pewter allomancy, while it increases strength, is explicitly not terribly helpful in falling long distances (pushing against a coin to slow yourself or feruchemical weight tapping is used in-world for that purpose).

 

So in general, I think the Steel Inquisitor would be outclassed. A knight radiant would be at least equivalent at all times in the physical aspects to the Inquisitor when he was burning, and actually likely be more effective due to a wider range of bonuses.

 

Lastly, though - atium. A windrunner would have no counter for atium but to try to avoid being killed for as long as the atium burns. I personally feel like the outcome would basically be decided by how much atium the Steel Inquisitor could bring to bear in the match.

[Cstryon]

Fair points. Great points actually! Generic vs generic, the windrunner wins. But this one has around the same number of spikes as Marsh, and he is at least compounding atium. So I'd assume this one has to be compounding. So what powers from hemalurgy is it going to take to make this fair? Can we assume my previous expected metals are being compounded (Gold, iron, pewter)?

[taveren]

depends on the type of inquisitor if its say marsh with every type of power in mistborn then yeah hard to beat the speed str compounding. the windrunner would get overpowered by speed alone but if its the inquisitor from the first books then the wind runner has it

[Satsuoni]

OK, a few points: Feruchemical gold can, indeed, heal Shardblade wounds (WoB).

The normal Lashing as attack for Windrunner is upwards, not down, so Pewter won't help, though Steel may (assuming they fight on rock plains, and Inquisitor has some metal coins). Shardblade is way more invested than Spikes, so it would probably cut through them. It is unknown what cutting the spikes would do, or even if the spikes count as alive or dead when they are in the Inquisitor (they are part of his Spiritual makeup, so...)

Anyway, if Inquisitor is burning Atium, and /or compounding steel and zinc, he may win. In fact, though not guaranteed, enough Feruchemical zinc/Feruchemical steel should spped Inquisitor up enough to just walk and cut Windrunner to pieces while he finishes blinking at the sight of metal spikes in the face

Otherwise, I'd say Inquisitor is dead.

[Tempus]

Cstryon, to make it 'fair'...

 

Knowing that the windrunner would have the full complement of his known powers - Stormlight enhancement (both physical enhancements and the mental enhancement that allows them to move with supernatural grace and skill), access to the three lashings, mutable shardblade and shardplate, and his host of squires as support...

 

We need to look at trumps, really. Regular Atium burning is a trump, nothing the windrunner has can beat it. There are several compounding trumps, I think. Steel, Chromium, Duralumin, and probably Zinc. Actually, Zinc compound+electrum is basically atium, so yes, Zinc. Given how far compounding increases abilities over regular tapping, I think it would be difficult for a Radiant to overcome any of those.

 

 

Besides those, I think the fight would tend to favour. The windrunner can fly, and so effectively retreat at any time. He also has support troops. He has merely to continue until he has the upper hand, retreating when necessary. The inquisitor, robbed of the above abilities, has no easy retreat from a windrunner.

 

One interesting thing is that given how these things tend to work, I'm willing to bet that a Chromium burn would eliminate stormlight from the target.

[Cstryon]

To be fair was intending for the windrunner to be on his own and no plate. Just finished words of radiance.

Spoilers following....

Say for example, Kal, at the end of WoR vs Marsh at AoL.

But even without a full compliment, what Kal did seemed a lot like... Trying not to be a jerk, just thinking of Vin, and I'm convinced. The inquisitor would have to have started out like the Lord Ruler with full Mistborn and feruchemist. Than got some added strength with spikes I am thinking. Wow.

[GroundPetrel]

This is why I want Sazed to send Marsh to Roshar.  

 

Marsh is likely to have double Gold, and DEFINITELY has double atium, which suggests that Sazed keeps him stocked.  Ergo, epic badass fight.  

 

The big one would be: Are Shardblades and Shardplate affected by iron and steel Allomancy?  If yes, then Marsh would win with ease.  If not, I think that Kaladin could kick his butt.  

[Edgedancer]

There are already a lot of good point about the power level depending on what kinds of compounding are available and Atium. However, one thing no one mentioned is that a Steel Inquisitor "collapses" if his neck spike is removed. Ergo one clean cut in the neck and the Inquisitor is dead, most likely even when he has double gold. Even with Atium I doubt that attacking effectively would be hard. So, unless we have op compounding the fight is heavily in favour of the Windrunner.

[lordofsoup]

A regular inquisitor would have no chance, but Marsh would stomp. Compounding is more than a Windrunner could handle. Duralumin is a trump card that Windrunners would not be able to match even if they had Shardplate. Wax blew apart an entire steel tower and he only has one allomantic and feruchemic power.

[Cromptj]

Would chromium be able to remove all of a Windrunner's stormlight? Also, chromium compounding.

[Moogle]

If the Windrunner just Lashed a small rock at the Inquisitor with all of his Stormlight reserves, the Inquisitor would be dead. A Reverse Lashing would protect the Windrunner. Stormlight can lift huge boulders (and Szeth is weaker when he does that than Kaladin at the end of TWOK). A small rock should be able to be accelerated at several hundred g's. Atium wouldn't be enough to avoid it, particularly considering that (WoR spoilers)

Windrunners appear to get an atium-like effect of their own, as Kaladin demonstrates in the duel where he could have dodged both Shardbearers with his eyes closed (the feeling of invincibility matches atium).

 

Now, if they've got Feruchemical gold, this makes matters a bit more tricky. The Windrunner has to use a Full Lashing on them, stick them to a surface, then repeatedly cut their spine until they run out of Feruchemical gold. This should be doable without much issue; Stormlight is like a much improved pewter, Reverse Lashings stop steel coins from hitting them (an Inquisitor's most lethal weapon, really), and Windrunners can spray Full Lashings around like fire hydrants.

 

If the Inquisitor has atium, the Windrunner just flies up above the clouds and waits for them to run out. Mistborn have a limited range with Steelpushes, and Windrunners can accelerate faster than Mistborn.

 

If the Inquisitor is like Marsh, the Windrunner is dead full stop. Feruchemical zinc/Feruchemical steel mean extra speed, which means killing the Windrunner before they can possibly react. Nothing can kill a full Feruchemist one on one unless they're surprised or the enemy has a terrain advantage (say, starting in midair). It's even more ridiculous if the Inquisitor can Compound.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Moogle

[PorridgeBrick]

I'm not so sure that even Feruchemy will give much of a speed advantage. Combine atmospheric pressure and gravity, and any windrunner should be able to accelerate to blinding speeds. Really, the only real limit is how many G's their body can withstand. And they only need a bit of time to get out of reach, where they can just snipe them off.

As for Feruchemical gold, including Compounding: that is dependent on their spikes. Inquisitors have no armor to guard their spikes against a Shardblade, while the Windrunner's shardplate can last enough for the Windrunner to just wade in, take the hits, and slice up their spikes. A natural Feruchemical gold Compounder is certainly an enormous threat for a Windrunner, but an Inquisitor should be easier.

[bartbug]

@ Moogle. 

I interpreted that as Kaladin being able to somehow feel the Investiture of the sword, in a similar way of lifesense from Nalthis and Seeking from Scadrial. [spoiler/]

 

Besides, it really doesn't matter. Arm the Radiant with Aluminum, arm all of his squires with Aluminum, and it doesn't matter. Inquisitor loses his atium, and everyone else can just spear him down.

[Tempus]

In WoR, it is told us that Aluminium is extremely rare on Roshar, and is mentioned that it only soulcast. It would take a large amount of advance preparation and the intervention of another Radiant or a Fabrial (both magic systems not mentioned in the original post as being available) to create weapons, armor, and any necessary gear out of aluminium.

 

 

“The necklace?” Shallan asked.

“Simple, but of aluminum, which can only be made by Soulcasting,” the man said to his boss. “Ten emerald.”

 

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Words of Radiance.”

[PorridgeBrick]

No need for aluminum anyway though. Plate and Blades are all way too heavily Invested to push on.

[Cstryon]

Lashing the inquisitor doesn't do much, Feruchemical iron fixes any weight problems. Plus if shard blade and plate are too invested, I'd argue if this inquisitor had so many spikes, he'd be too invested to lash. Compound iron, toss a few coins, Feruchemical zinc, Feruchemical steel, drop all the weight into a mind, pull on a coin, he's flying. Any metal on this windrunner or even the coins he likely ignores they clink off his plate is purchase too pull straight at the windrunner, while in motion, compound the iron again, burning pewter (probably won't need Feruchemical pewter) and this windrunner just got smashed by a very massive object flying at very high speed. If the inquisitor had enough metal arts, and was creative enough, his powers become rediculous.

[Tempus]

No coins on Roshar. Relatively little metal. Everything is gemstones, remember? Also - increasing weight changes the trajectory of flight, you couldn't hit a target in the air by compounding weight and pulling towards it. You would weight far too much. Especially since allomantic physics are pretty much newtonian - You can push off a coin since the coin hits the ground, but pulling a coin would need something solid enough to resist your momentum. Most likely scenario in that case is the inquisitor dropping like a rock and whatever bits of pullable metal simply being torn off the windrunner.

[Cstryon]

Drops all his weight, meaning nearly weightless when he pulled. The coin would now weigh more than him. I don't know if there is a limit to how much mass you can drop. What I meant to impress is the inquisitor, now weighing far less than the coin, is now pulled in that direction. While he's already going that direction, at a good speed, that's when he compounds and gets massive, if needed, he could do it at the last moment before impact.

No coins on Roshar doesn't matter, no inquisitor either. I doubt any coinshot/lurcher is going anywhere without small bits of metal to throw around.

[SmurfAquamarineBodies]

Steel inquisitor compounds speed, both mental and physical, plus health and strength then runs, as fast as he can so about anywhere from 100-300km/h because he heals the friction damage, punches windrunner in the face, windrunner's face explodes, windrunner dies.

 

If you think that the windrunners ability to lash is an advantage, know that all the steel inquisitor has to do is wait for the stormlight to run out or for him to be in reach then run in and punch him in the face. Radiant powers are stronger I'll give them that but compounded feruchemy lasts far longer, Kaladin blows through so much stormlight so quickly. Surgebinding is the most hungry of the magic systems seen so far.

[Kyzkle]

As Radiants progress they become much more efficient, and Kaladin never held very much of it until the end of WoR. A second ideal windrunner is like a full-power mistborn burning all enhancement metals at once and compounding health, and that's just while HOLDING the light. No ordinary inquisitor could match that without serious compounding of speed and strength, and that's ignoring the shardblade and lashings.

 

Put Marsh against a second ideal windrunner, and it COULD be a fair fight. The advantage in lashings isn't the ability to launch the opponent into the air; it's the ability to rapidly alter the terms of engagement. It's basically the equivalent of a mistborn fighting in a steel cage, being able to push and pull on any object they want. Even burning atium, Marsh would have to contend with constantly changing frames of reference and would end up spending most of his time watching the shardblade to dodge it. A clever windrunner could take advantage of this to just pull out the lynchpin spike while he was watching the blade (like Zahal).

 

Push the windrunner up to the third ideal, and even Marsh dies, no contest. Healing is on par with, if not better than compounding, and all other enhancements are practically at savant flaring levels for a lerasium mistborn. Add the fact that pewter can only improve the ability of it's user to endure punishment while stormlight actively improves the body's ability to handle it, and there's no way the inquisitor could hope to outlast the windrunner physically. The only advantage the inquisitor could maintain is zinc, and even that could be mitigated by proper combat training for the windrunner. With a mutating shardblade, there is just no way the inquisitor could hope to get a hit in, let alone actually do damage. One hit to the spine, and it doesn't matter how much they're compounding; they need someone else to bring them back.

 

Push the windrunner up the fifth ideal, and I don't see how anything in the known cosmere (other than shards) could kill them. Armed with near-impenetrable self-healing plate, a weapon that morphs to suit the need of the moment, and complete control of space-time (assuming they learn how to create a gravitty bubble) and you've basically got a demigod. The only thing I could see matching them (other than maybe a skybreaker or dustbringer) would be a natural feruchemist who became a lerasium mistborn and recieved as many spikes as possible, with a full set of (normal) shards. Either that, or whoever's managed to convince Nightblood that surgebinder's are evil.

[Satsuoni]

As Radiants progress they become much more efficient, and Kaladin never held very much of it until the end of WoR. A second ideal windrunner is like a full-power mistborn burning all enhancement metals at once and compounding health, and that's just while HOLDING the light. No ordinary inquisitor could match that without serious compounding of speed and strength, and that's ignoring the shardblade and lashings.

 

Put Marsh against a second ideal windrunner, and it COULD be a fair fight. The advantage in lashings isn't the ability to launch the opponent into the air; it's the ability to rapidly alter the terms of engagement. It's basically the equivalent of a mistborn fighting in a steel cage, being able to push and pull on any object they want. Even burning atium, Marsh would have to contend with constantly changing frames of reference and would end up spending most of his time watching the shardblade to dodge it. A clever windrunner could take advantage of this to just pull out the lynchpin spike while he was watching the blade (like Zahal).

 

Push the windrunner up to the third ideal, and even Marsh dies, no contest. Healing is on par with, if not better than compounding, and all other enhancements are practically at savant flaring levels for a lerasium mistborn. Add the fact that pewter can only improve the ability of it's user to endure punishment while stormlight actively improves the body's ability to handle it, and there's no way the inquisitor could hope to outlast the windrunner physically. The only advantage the inquisitor could maintain is zinc, and even that could be mitigated by proper combat training for the windrunner. With a mutating shardblade, there is just no way the inquisitor could hope to get a hit in, let alone actually do damage. One hit to the spine, and it doesn't matter how much they're compounding; they need someone else to bring them back.

 

Push the windrunner up the fifth ideal, and I don't see how anything in the known cosmere (other than shards) could kill them. Armed with near-impenetrable self-healing plate, a weapon that morphs to suit the need of the moment, and complete control of space-time (assuming they learn how to create a gravitty bubble) and you've basically got a demigod. The only thing I could see matching them (other than maybe a skybreaker or dustbringer) would be a natural feruchemist who became a lerasium mistborn and recieved as many spikes as possible, with a full set of (normal) shards. Either that, or whoever's managed to convince Nightblood that surgebinder's are evil.

 

Let me reiterate my previous point:

You are no doubt correct, but only to the extent, the extent being speed. Many people (and authors) seem to underestimate speed as weapon against even well trained combatant.

Imagine Inquisitor compounding Speed and mental speed. There are natural limits in the body in relation to speed, especially reaction speed. It takes a normal human about 0.1 sec for information to reach brain from the eye, and no amount of training will raise that, thought  you may learn to predict movements and start reacting before you see them. Stormlight probably raises that limits, but not too much. Let us say even 10x. Now imagine inquisitor, with atium and compounding steel/zinc, boosting his muscle speed and mental speed 1000x - for a few seconds, but it wouldn't take longer. For him, Windrunner stands still, his atium shadow stretching to near infinity (several seconds * 1000). He can run to Windrunner - long before Windrunner registers movement, or his blade can morph - and hack Windrunner to pieces, drag those pieces apart and see how well windrunner survives that. Heck, Inquisitor would probably be able to take Shardblade before it evaporates and cut Windrunner with his own Shardblade.

Of course, Inquisitor would need to carry hefty steel/zincminds for that, and would probably drain them at once, leaving him weakened. But he would probably win. In this particular case.