Compounding

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES he/him]

Ive jut finished my reread of mistborn era2(there arent any spoilers for it in this post) and I just wanted to know if somebody could dumb down exactly how compounding works for me. Its always just been a okay that happens thing for me but ive never understood the exact mechanics.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

5 minutes ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

Ive jut finished my reread of mistborn era2(there arent any spoilers for it in this post) and I just wanted to know if somebody could dumb down exactly how compounding works for me. Its always just been a okay that happens thing for me but ive never understood the exact mechanics.

Alright so I'll break it down into a step by step process:

Step 1: Possess matching Allomantic and Feruchemical powers, such as having A-Gold and F-Gold.

Step 2: Fill your Metalmind. Make sure it's something you can swallow like a bead or something. 

Step 3: Swallow your metalmind and Burn it Allomantically. The Metalmind will 'Trick' Preservation/Harmony's Investiture into fueling the Feruchemy and provide you with far more of the attribute than you put in. Like taking a hand crank flashlight and hooking it up to a generator.

Step 4: Store the excess attribute into another metalmind, then Burn that, get even more than before, then store that excess into another metalmind and repeat.

And thus you have unlimited Health/Speed/Strength/Weight/Whatever metal your Feruchemy is.

[Treamayne]

45 minutes ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

Ive jut finished my reread of mistborn era2(there arent any spoilers for it in this post) and I just wanted to know if somebody could dumb down exactly how compounding works for me. Its always just been a okay that happens thing for me but ive never understood the exact mechanics.

So, in Feruchemy the metal is a key to a given ability, but the power comes from your own body (or, more technically, the attribute is stored as investiture in the metalmind, then that Investiture is tapped to release the stored attibute).

In Allomancy the metal is a key to a given ability, but the power comes from the Spiritual Realm (burning metal being the action of "converting" metal into investiture based on the "key" of the metal.

In Compounding, a Twinborn stores an attribute in metal - then burns that metal Allomantically. This converts the metal into investiture powered from the Spiritual Realm. However, because the metal burned was a Metal Mind, it still has the Feruchemy "key" (rather than the allomantic key for that metal). The result is the Compounder gets (roughly) 10x more power out of the metalmind than what was stored. That output can also be stored into one or more new metalminds.

The Twinborn is essentially making a new Allomantic metal only that person can use.

(Very rough) Example:

Spoiler

Miles stores enough health to heal a 1" cut in five seconds in a Goldmind. He then burns that goldmind and because it is supplemented by SR investiture he then gets enough health to heal a 10" gash on 5 second (or 10 1" gashes, etc). If he doesn't need the health right now, he can Store it as he is burning the metal to tap later. Or - he could then burn the new metalmind that heals a 10" gash and receive 10x that equivalent health, etc. and so-on. . .

*Note: none of the numbers in the example are accurate, they are meant only to describe the process

Edited December 21, 2022 by Treamayne
Clarification and link

[HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES he/him]

1 minute ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

Alright so I'll break it down into a step by step process:

Step 1: Possess matching Allomantic and Feruchemical powers, such as having A-Gold and F-Gold.

Step 2: Fill your Metalmind. Make sure it's something you can swallow like a bead or something. 

Step 3: Swallow your metalmind and Burn it Allomantically. The Metalmind will 'Trick' Preservation/Harmony's Investiture into fueling the Feruchemy and provide you with far more of the attribute than you put in. Like taking a hand crank flashlight and hooking it up to a generator.

Step 4: Store the excess attribute into another metalmind, then Burn that, get even more than before, then store that excess into another metalmind and repeat.

And thus you have unlimited Health/Speed/Strength/Weight/Whatever metal your Feruchemy is.

thanks but i have a few more questions

1. why is the end result only ever the feruchemical result rather than the allomantic

2. What abt things like identity or memories how do you have those unlimited

3.wouldnt the lord ruler have just had unlimited age in that case. WHich would just make him infinitley old. not keep him alive

[NameIess]

3 minutes ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

thanks but i have a few more questions

1. why is the end result only ever the feruchemical result rather than the allomantic

2. What abt things like identity or memories how do you have those unlimited

3.wouldnt the lord ruler have just had unlimited age in that case. WHich would just make him infinitley old. not keep him alive

1. The end result is feruchemical because the feruchemical attributes that you've stored in the metal "key" it to that feruchemical power. 

2. Those things are weird. It might make memories more clear, or maybe just replicate them.

3. Atium stores youth, not age.

[Treamayne]

Here's the Coppermind Page

27 minutes ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

thanks but i have a few more questions

1. why is the end result only ever the feruchemical result rather than the allomantic

See my post above, please.

You'll see threads around theorizing "Reverse Compounding" - but, if it exists, we do not yet know how it would work to use Feruchemy to store Allomantic ability (and therefore tap that ability in the multiples allowed by Feruchemy, but not normally found in Allomancy)

Quote

2. What about things like identity or memories how do you have those unlimited

Brandon has RAFOed all questions on Copper Compounding. Ditto and of the Spiritual Quadrant metals

Quote

3.Wouldn't The Lord Ruler have just had unlimited age in that case. Which would just make him infinitely old. not keep him alive

Storing Age makes you older for a time, tapping it makes you younger. Therefore burning it you "gain" 10x the youth that was stored.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Treamayne
Clarification

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

1 hour ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

3.wouldnt the lord ruler have just had unlimited age in that case. WHich would just make him infinitley old. not keep him alive

Relevant WOB breaking down the mechanics of this and Compounding in general.

Quote

Doom-Slayer

So how do the exact mechanics of Feruchemy in relation to Compounding work?

This confusion is primarily around how [the Lord Ruler] gets his near infinite age.

Okay. So first off, I understand the concept of how they work. Feruchemy is net zero, Allomancy is net positive, combine them and you end with a net positive Feruchemy ability.

So how Feruchemy normally works... you take say weight, store half your normal weight and then you can access it whenever you want. So you (originally X weight) are taking A weight, storing it, and then you are at (X-A) weight, with access to A. So we have a metalmind that store magnitude with the efficiency of how its received based on how quickly or slowly it is drawn upon.

All the metalminds except atium seem to act this way. Atium seems to work as storing magnitude/time rather than just magnitude. The way I understand it is that say a 30 year old person becomes 50 years old for 1 day, this would give access to 20 years difference for a 1 day period.

The Lord Ruler then exploits this by gaining access to say 20 years difference over 10 days (magnification by Compounding) which he then slowly feeds into himself to lower his age.

Why this difference? I'm assuming its to maintain a neutral "body age" because with just magnitude a person could permanently make themselves younger by Compounding.

With just magnitude of "20 years of youth" being stored, if the Lord Ruler magnified it, he could turn it into "200 years of youth" and then he would never need the constant stream off youth (and wouldn't have died without the bracelets)

Hope this makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.

First, is that magics can be hacked together. You'll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here--where you're essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)

The piece you're missing is the nature of a person's Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea--the idea that there's a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It's a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw Investiture. The soul, you might say.

(Note that over time, a person's perception of themselves shapes their Cognitive aspect as well, and the Cognitive aspect can interfere with the Spiritual aspect trying to make the Physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your Physical self with your Spiritual self--making the Physical regrow. More powerful forms of Investiture can repair the soul as well.

However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul "knows" things, like where you were born, what Investiture you are aligned with, and--yes--how old you are. When you're healing yourself, you're restoring yourself to a perfect state--when you're done, everything is good. When you're changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.

So the Spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this Compounding hack, you're not changing connection; it's a purely Physical Realm change.

This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won't matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use Compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul's attempt to restore you to how you should be.

Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It's a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn't have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing Connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult.

Though this is the point where I ping [Peter Ahlstrom] and get him to double-check all this. Once in a while, my fingers still type the wrong term in places. (See silvereye vs tineye.)

General Reddit 2015 (Nov. 20, 2015)

 

[Frustration he/him]

3 hours ago, HOID WANTS INSTANT NOODLES said:

thanks but i have a few more questions

1. why is the end result only ever the feruchemical result rather than the allomantic

2. What abt things like identity or memories how do you have those unlimited

3.wouldnt the lord ruler have just had unlimited age in that case. WHich would just make him infinitley old. not keep him alive

Let me see if I can help you out.

When a compounder stores something on their metalminds, they have especially created a new allomantic metal, that when burned gives them the feruchemical trait.

And you really don't have unlimited, any more than a Mistborn has unlimited steel pushes, you can just save up your trait for use later like you can normal feruchemy.

[Heretic333]

I almost imagine it like nuclear fission vs fusion. The energy in the smallest invested particles in the cosmere can release enormous amounts of energy. Having 2 opposing metals burn in a misting like gold and copper is a blunt combination that burns up quickly. But two matching metals.. its energy release is seemingly renewable and self amplifying...still finite.. but an extremely efficient release of energy. I have no doubt space travel in era 3 will follow along this line.  

[Tglassy]

On 12/21/2022 at 0:17 AM, Frustration said:

Let me see if I can help you out.

When a compounder stores something on their metalminds, they have especially created a new allomantic metal, that when burned gives them the feruchemical trait.

And you really don't have unlimited, any more than a Mistborn has unlimited steel pushes, you can just save up your trait for use later like you can normal feruchemy.

Except that you do.  You literally have unlimted, as long as you have more metal.  

If I store ten minutes worth of double strength in a metalmind, and eat it, and burn it, storing all the excess in a new metalmind, I now have 100 minutes of double strength.  I then eat that, and store all of the excess in a new metalmind, eat it and burn it,  I now have 1000 minutes of double strength. 

It goes up by a factor of 10 every time you do it.  Miles LITERALLY had unlimited Health.  Literally.  Unlimited, as long as he had metal.  You can argue "But it's only until the metalmind lasts", and sure, but if you have a metalmind with 100,000,000 hours worth of double strength, you EFFECTIVELY have unlimited strength.  

[Treamayne]

31 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Except that you do.  You literally have unlimted, as long as you have more metal.  

If I store ten minutes worth of double strength in a metalmind, and eat it, and burn it, storing all the excess in a new metalmind, I now have 100 minutes of double strength.  I then eat that, and store all of the excess in a new metalmind, eat it and burn it,  I now have 1000 minutes of double strength. 

It goes up by a factor of 10 every time you do it.  Miles LITERALLY had unlimited Health.  Literally.  Unlimited, as long as he had metal.  You can argue "But it's only until the metalmind lasts", and sure, but if you have a metalmind with 100,000,000 hours worth of double strength, you EFFECTIVELY have unlimited strength.  

I understand where you are going with the idea but:

1. If it is limited by metal; it, by-definition, is not unlimited
2. A metalmind storing 100,000,000 hours of double strength would be the size of a house (or larger) and you would use all that strength just to move it for a minute or three.

Metalminds are not, of themselves, unlimited storage. That's why Keepers had metalminds of varying sizes (earrings, rings, bracers). Sure you could fill multiple metalminds, but you could not have them all on your person all at the same time, so it's still not "unlimited." Which doesn't mean that it isn't an obscene amount of power - TLR shows us that. And you can always make more, given enough metal and time. However, at any given time the amount of ability you could tap does have a limit for that time and that situation (either bounded by the amount of digestible metalminds you have with you to burn allomantically, or the number of filled metalminds you have on you to tap).

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

34 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I understand where you are going with the idea but:

1. If it is limited by metal; it, by-definition, is not unlimited
2. A metalmind storing 100,000,000 hours of double strength would be the size of a house (or larger) and you would use all that strength just to move it for a minute or three.

Metalminds are not, of themselves, unlimited storage. That's why Keepers had metalminds of varying sizes (earrings, rings, bracers). Sure you could fill multiple metalminds, but you could not have them all on your person all at the same time, so it's still not "unlimited." Which doesn't mean that it isn't an obscene amount of power - TLR shows us that. And you can always make more, given enough metal and time. However, at any given time the amount of ability you could tap does have a limit for that time and that situation (either bounded by the amount of digestible metalminds you have with you to burn allomantically, or the number of filled metalminds you have on you to tap).

Really astute breakdown of the mechanics! One thing to note too is that both Miles and TLR were savants with their metals, meaning they were more efficient at tapping their metalminds and drawing upon that well of healing. It's likely Miles would be able to get more from 1 hours worth of stored health than Wayne, for example. 

[StanLemon]

Interestingly, the amount of Investiture that a Metalmind can hold is hard to determine. The Bands was made of multiple metals, so each individual Metalmind was even smaller than the Bands as a whole, yet held vast quantities of Investiture. Other Feruchemists though seemed to need larger storage. For example, Sazed used Steel bracers to store his speed, which likely was less than the amount the Bands held.

[Frustration he/him]

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Except that you do.  You literally have unlimted, as long as you have more metal.  

If I store ten minutes worth of double strength in a metalmind, and eat it, and burn it, storing all the excess in a new metalmind, I now have 100 minutes of double strength.  I then eat that, and store all of the excess in a new metalmind, eat it and burn it,  I now have 1000 minutes of double strength. 

It goes up by a factor of 10 every time you do it.  Miles LITERALLY had unlimited Health.  Literally.  Unlimited, as long as he had metal.  You can argue "But it's only until the metalmind lasts", and sure, but if you have a metalmind with 100,000,000 hours worth of double strength, you EFFECTIVELY have unlimited strength.  

1. Even under your model that isn't unlimited 

2. That's not how that works.

The amount of feruchemical trait is directly equivalent to the amount of metal burned, because compounding is just using Allomancy to fuel Feruchemy, and since Allomancy does not become more powerful the more you store in a metalmind, that amount of trait in your metalmind is irrelevant, you will get the same amount of trait out after compounding.

[Tglassy]

20 hours ago, Frustration said:

1. Even under your model that isn't unlimited 

2. That's not how that works.

The amount of feruchemical trait is directly equivalent to the amount of metal burned, because compounding is just using Allomancy to fuel Feruchemy, and since Allomancy does not become more powerful the more you store in a metalmind, that amount of trait in your metalmind is irrelevant, you will get the same amount of trait out after compounding.

I don't follow  Burning a Metalmind grants 10x the amount of attribute stored.  That's how Compounding works.  You burn strength, instead of regular pewter, and then store that strength in a metalmind.  Or let's do gold.  You store healing in a goldmind, then burn the goldmind, and instead of seeing a past version of yourself, you get 10x the amount of healing that you stored in that metalmind.  Then you take all that extra healing and store it in a new metalmind.  Now you have a metalmind with 10x the amount of attribute that was stored in the original. And since you aren't limited in the amount of an attribute you can pull from a metalmind, you can pull out as much as you need in the moment.  And since your metalmind is always completely full, you can pull out however much you need in ANY given moment.  

I should have said effectivly unlimited.  There's a theoretical limit, but they aren't going to hit it in a single battle, and can reup their reserves to the max very quickly after one.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's a WoB saying that if you burned Pewter, then stored THAT extra strength in a Pewtermind, you would not also store the extra muscle mass, because the strength you're storing is coming straight from Allomancy into the Pewtermind, so the strength the Pewtermind is holding is now Allomantic strength, not physical strength.  He made it seem like it's just a complicated way to get the same thing, but it isn't, because now you can have unlimited strength without the accompanying increase in muscle mass.  

Which is something I've pointed out three times in various threads on this forum and nobody seems to want to acknoledge.  

Edited December 24, 2022 by Tglassy

[Frustration he/him]

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

I don't follow  Burning a Metalmind grants 10x the amount of attribute stored.  That's how Compounding works.  You burn strength, instead of regular pewter, and then store that strength in a metalmind.  Or let's do gold.  You store healing in a goldmind, then burn the goldmind, and instead of seeing a past version of yourself, you get 10x the amount of healing that you stored in that metalmind.  Then you take all that extra healing and store it in a new metalmind.  Now you have a metalmind with 10x the amount of attribute that was stored in the original. And since you aren't limited in the amount of an attribute you can pull from a metalmind, you can pull out as much as you need in the moment.  And since your metalmind is always completely full, you can pull out however much you need in ANY given moment.  

I should have said effectivly unlimited.  There's a theoretical limit, but they aren't going to hit it in a single battle, and can reup their reserves to the max very quickly after one.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's a WoB saying that if you burned Pewter, then stored THAT extra strength in a Pewtermind, you would not also store the extra muscle mass, because the strength you're storing is coming straight from Allomancy into the Pewtermind, so the strength the Pewtermind is holding is now Allomantic strength, not physical strength.  He made it seem like it's just a complicated way to get the same thing, but it isn't, because now you can have unlimited strength without the accompanying increase in muscle mass.  

Which is something I've pointed out three times in various threads on this forum and nobody seems to want to acknoledge.  

It's not time 10. If you had two compounders each having one metalmind and an excess piece of metal which was enough for 5 breaths(units of investiture) of the allomantic trait. If compounder A stored 5 breath in the metal and then burned it storing all of the resulting trait in his metalmind, and Compounder B stored 1 breath of trait in his piece of metal and stored 4 breath in his metalmind, then burned his piece of metal storing all of the resulting trait in his metalmind, they would both end up with 10 breaths worth of feruchemical trait.

[Treamayne]

9 hours ago, Tglassy said:

I don't follow  Burning a Metalmind grants 10x the amount of attribute stored.  That's how Compounding works.  You burn strength, instead of regular pewter, and then store that strength in a metalmind.  Or let's do gold.  You store healing in a goldmind, then burn the goldmind, and instead of seeing a past version of yourself, you get 10x the amount of healing that you stored in that metalmind.  Then you take all that extra healing and store it in a new metalmind.  Now you have a metalmind with 10x the amount of attribute that was stored in the original. And since you aren't limited in the amount of an attribute you can pull from a metalmind, you can pull out as much as you need in the moment.  And since your metalmind is always completely full, you can pull out however much you need in ANY given moment.  

I should have said effectively unlimited.  There's a theoretical limit, but they aren't going to hit it in a single battle, and can reup their reserves to the max very quickly after one.

<snip>

Which is something I've pointed out three times in various threads on this forum and nobody seems to want to acknowledge.  

On 12/23/2022 at 0:55 AM, Frustration said:

The amount of feruchemical trait is directly equivalent to the amount of metal burned, because compounding is just using Allomancy to fuel Feruchemy, and since Allomancy does not become more powerful the more you store in a metalmind, that amount of trait in your metalmind is irrelevant, you will get the same amount of trait out after compounding.

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

It's not times 10. If you had two compounders each having one metalmind and an excess piece of metal which was enough for 5 breaths(units of investiture) of the allomantic trait. If compounder A stored 5 breath in the metal and then burned it storing all of the resulting trait in his metalmind, and Compounder B stored 1 breath of trait in his piece of metal and stored 4 breath in his metalmind, then burned his piece of metal storing all of the resulting trait in his metalmind, they would both end up with 10 breaths worth of feruchemical trait.

The more I think about this, the more I think neither of these interpretations are exactly correct. There are Words of Brandon that support both interpretations (see below). 

Let's reason it out together. . . far the sake of discussion (and avoiding complexity by using Breaths, since that could imply Awakening to people reading this later) I suggest we simply use the notional "Investiture unit (IU)"

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with Feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a Feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the Feruchemical charge overwrites the Allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel Feruchemy with Allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels Allomancy, to fuel Feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an Allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of Feruchemical power. That’s why Compounding is so powerful.

Spoiler

Andrew The Great (paraphrased)

What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and I'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.

This implies to me that the metalmind filter really is nothing more than "instead of Allomantic IUs you get Feruchemical IUs"

Spoiler

yurisses

If Miles stored a very tiny bit of health into a gold bead and then burned it, what would happen? Would he see goldshadows for a time and then obtain Compounded health when reaching the charged part of the bead? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, no gold shadows, but at a very low rate since only little health was loaded in it? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, but at a standard rate the user would always get when compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd hack the system to deliver health for a short time instead of doing what it was supposed to do, but only until the small portion of gold Invested with his Investiture ran out.

This implies to me that the amount of Ferchemical IUs released is related to the amount of metal burned.

Spoiler

Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

This implies to me that your understanding and Intent of how compounding will function can impact how that ability expresses itself.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick.

This implies to me that "multipliers" can be a part of the "Ferchemy filter" applied to a metalmind acting as allomantic fuel

Spoiler

Doom-Slayer

So how do the exact mechanics of Feruchemy in relation to Compounding work?

This confusion is primarily around how [the Lord Ruler] gets his near infinite age.

Okay. So first off, I understand the concept of how they work. Feruchemy is net zero, Allomancy is net positive, combine them and you end with a net positive Feruchemy ability.

So how Feruchemy normally works... you take say weight, store half your normal weight and then you can access it whenever you want. So you (originally X weight) are taking A weight, storing it, and then you are at (X-A) weight, with access to A. So we have a metalmind that store magnitude with the efficiency of how its received based on how quickly or slowly it is drawn upon.

All the metalminds except atium seem to act this way. Atium seems to work as storing magnitude/time rather than just magnitude. The way I understand it is that say a 30 year old person becomes 50 years old for 1 day, this would give access to 20 years difference for a 1 day period.

The Lord Ruler then exploits this by gaining access to say 20 years difference over 10 days (magnification by Compounding) which he then slowly feeds into himself to lower his age.

Why this difference? I'm assuming its to maintain a neutral "body age" because with just magnitude a person could permanently make themselves younger by Compounding.

With just magnitude of "20 years of youth" being stored, if the Lord Ruler magnified it, he could turn it into "200 years of youth" and then he would never need the constant stream off youth (and wouldn't have died without the bracelets)

Hope this makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.

First, is that magics can be hacked together. You'll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here--where you're essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)

The piece you're missing is the nature of a person's Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea--the idea that there's a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It's a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw Investiture. The soul, you might say.

(Note that over time, a person's perception of themselves shapes their Cognitive aspect as well, and the Cognitive aspect can interfere with the Spiritual aspect trying to make the Physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your Physical self with your Spiritual self--making the Physical regrow. More powerful forms of Investiture can repair the soul as well.

However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul "knows" things, like where you were born, what Investiture you are aligned with, and--yes--how old you are. When you're healing yourself, you're restoring yourself to a perfect state--when you're done, everything is good. When you're changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.

So the Spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this Compounding hack, you're not changing connection; it's a purely Physical Realm change.

This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won't matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use Compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul's attempt to restore you to how you should be.

Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It's a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn't have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing Connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult.

This implies to me that different Ferchemical attributes (metals) may behave slightly differently depending on how that F-Attribute is impacted by your Spiritweb and Cognitive Self. Therefore, some of those properties become part of the filter.

This also implies to me that the amount stored in the metalmind has at least some impact, since it implies that TLR had to store more and compound more to get the same result. If 1 allomantic metal IU of F-Atium only ever resulted in 10 IUs of Age when burned, it seems TLR would have run out of compounded age long ago or quickly gotten to the point where all he could do 24/7 was eat and burn Atium since the smallest IU of age would be insufficient to roll back centuries of age.

Spoiler

Questioner

What happens if you burn duralumin while Compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

Duralumin while Compounding. So, what duralumin does is it burns out of all of your metal in one burst. So it doesn't necessarily gain you power, it makes it all happen at the same time. The same thing would happen.

Questioner

Could you turn into a baby?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you could totally turn into a baby. That is within the power of using that, doing <health [Age?] wrong>, yeah you could totally... You'd be really dangerous.

Questioner

But it wouldn't really do much?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh it would have explosive... it does things really fast. That's what it does. Yes you could achieve very powerful sudden effects through that. It'd be scary. Controlling it can be dangerous, regardless of which metal you use.

Note: Where BS has "<health wrong>" I noted he probably meant age - since compounded health should never turn you into a child, but duralumin burned compounded youth might. But it still implies to me that the amount of stored youth matters to the compounding. If that was not the case, then a duralumin burned Atium-mind could never result in a enough youth, when burned, to age back to childhood.

*****

My Conclusions: At its most basic, Compounding changes the metal's filter from Allomancy to Feruchemy - but part of that filter is the multiplier quantity of the attribute and is also spread across the qty of IUs of metal. Since burning (without duralumin) is a small release over time (that can be increased by "flaring" - but with a maximum cap based on allomantic strength) any qty of feruchemical storage in a metalmind would be divided by the IUs of allomantic metal in the storage before being multiplied by burning the IUs into feruchemical investiture. A notional "100 multipler" burned into "1000 times F-Attribute" isn't really possible, because a metalmind storing "100 times attribute" would be too large to swallow and burn - and any shavings from said metalmind would, by necessity, be a relative fraction of the starting "100 time attribute" worth of storage. Intent, and (implied) command are also a factor of how the effect is expressed.

So, the amount stored matters - the size of the metalmind matters but both are simply variables in the total equation so it is not as simple as "any storage is that same as full storage" nor as simple as "qty of storage x 10."

Ideas, thoughts, conclusions?

Edited December 24, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Frustration he/him]

4 hours ago, Treamayne said:

The more I think about this, the more I think neither of these interpretations are exactly correct. There are Words of Brandon that support both interpretations (see below). 

Let's reason it out together. . . far the sake of discussion (and avoiding complexity by using Breaths, since that could imply Awakening to people reading this later) I suggest we simply use the notional "Investiture unit (IU)"

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Brandon Sanderson

Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with Feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a Feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the Feruchemical charge overwrites the Allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel Feruchemy with Allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels Allomancy, to fuel Feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an Allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of Feruchemical power. That’s why Compounding is so powerful.

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Andrew The Great (paraphrased)

What would happen if a person were to burn a metal that was Feruchemically charged using Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The metal used in Allomancy is like a key or a doorway to the power that Allomancy actually uses. The metal acts as a filter, much as the Aons in Elantris do, to determine what the power actually does. However, if the metal is Feruchemically charged, then it will basically become a super-burst of Feruchemical power with no Allomantic effect. The Feruchemical charge acts as a filter as well as the metal, and changes what the power does. in this case, say you were burning steel, you would just be massively speedy for a second, and wouldn't actually have the ability to push on anything Allomantically. Hope that answered the question. I get the concept, so if you need me to explain it differently, let me know and I'll try. Oh, the other thing I forgot is that this concept only works if it's a metal that you charged yourself. If it's a metal someone else charged, it would just work like regular Allomancy, and the Feruchemical charge would just cease to exist.

This implies to me that the metalmind filter really is nothing more than "instead of Allomantic IUs you get Feruchemical IUs"

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yurisses

If Miles stored a very tiny bit of health into a gold bead and then burned it, what would happen? Would he see goldshadows for a time and then obtain Compounded health when reaching the charged part of the bead? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, no gold shadows, but at a very low rate since only little health was loaded in it? Would the bead be evenly charged and deliver only health, but at a standard rate the user would always get when compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd hack the system to deliver health for a short time instead of doing what it was supposed to do, but only until the small portion of gold Invested with his Investiture ran out.

This implies to me that the amount of Ferchemical IUs released is related to the amount of metal burned.

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Moogle

Compounding requires practice, according to The Hero of Age's annotations. And yet, it's apparently as easy as burning a metalmind. What was going on that meant the Inquisitors couldn't figure out how to do it (despite Ruin likely knowing how and undoubtedly wanting them to learn) for over a year? What skill did they need to practice doing, exactly?

And what happened while they were practicing burning metalminds without successfully Compounding? Did they get an Allomantic effect?

Brandon Sanderson

What I think I was getting at in the annotations was a cosmere magic rule that, perhaps, I hadn't completely refined yet. This is the idea that INTENTION is vitally important to the workings of most cosmere magics.

You can learn to burn metals instinctively over time, but it does take time--time for your body to figure out what it's doing. If you have instruction and guidance, you can pick it up in an evening, like Vin did. Same goes for most of the magics. This ties into Awakening, with the idea that you have to form a command.

During Warbreaker was where I really refined this aspect of the magic. Logically, since the beginning of the cosmere, I've wanted all three Realms to be important to the way the magics worked. The "Practice" therefore for compounding is mental practice--a barrier to overcome in understanding what is happening, and what it will do to you.

If you already know all of these things by having it explained to you, that barrier is far less high. I think that was what I was talking about in the Annotations, without really having the idea specified yet--though I'd have to look back at the annotation and re-read it to say for certain.

This implies to me that your understanding and Intent of how compounding will function can impact how that ability expresses itself.

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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Feruchemy is about multipliers. The more the Lord Ruler aged, the less "multiplier" he could store in his metalmind. And the more he aged the more he would need to Compound to stay alive. There could exist an upper bound to the amount of time the Lord Ruler could survive off this trick.

This implies to me that "multipliers" can be a part of the "Ferchemy filter" applied to a metalmind acting as allomantic fuel

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Doom-Slayer

So how do the exact mechanics of Feruchemy in relation to Compounding work?

This confusion is primarily around how [the Lord Ruler] gets his near infinite age.

Okay. So first off, I understand the concept of how they work. Feruchemy is net zero, Allomancy is net positive, combine them and you end with a net positive Feruchemy ability.

So how Feruchemy normally works... you take say weight, store half your normal weight and then you can access it whenever you want. So you (originally X weight) are taking A weight, storing it, and then you are at (X-A) weight, with access to A. So we have a metalmind that store magnitude with the efficiency of how its received based on how quickly or slowly it is drawn upon.

All the metalminds except atium seem to act this way. Atium seems to work as storing magnitude/time rather than just magnitude. The way I understand it is that say a 30 year old person becomes 50 years old for 1 day, this would give access to 20 years difference for a 1 day period.

The Lord Ruler then exploits this by gaining access to say 20 years difference over 10 days (magnification by Compounding) which he then slowly feeds into himself to lower his age.

Why this difference? I'm assuming its to maintain a neutral "body age" because with just magnitude a person could permanently make themselves younger by Compounding.

With just magnitude of "20 years of youth" being stored, if the Lord Ruler magnified it, he could turn it into "200 years of youth" and then he would never need the constant stream off youth (and wouldn't have died without the bracelets)

Hope this makes sense.

Brandon Sanderson

All right, so there are a few things you have to understand about cosmere magics to grok all of this.

First, is that magics can be hacked together. You'll see more of this in the future of the cosmere, but an early one is the hack here--where you're essentially powering Feruchemy with Allomancy. (A little more complex than that, but it seems like you get the idea.)

The piece you're missing is the nature of a person's Spiritual aspect. This is similar to a Platonic idea--the idea that there's a perfect version of everyone somewhere. It's a mix of their connections to places, people, and times with raw Investiture. The soul, you might say.

(Note that over time, a person's perception of themselves shapes their Cognitive aspect as well, and the Cognitive aspect can interfere with the Spiritual aspect trying to make the Physical aspect repair itself.) Healing in the cosmere often works by aligning your Physical self with your Spiritual self--making the Physical regrow. More powerful forms of Investiture can repair the soul as well.

However, your age is part of your Connection to places, people, and times. Your soul "knows" things, like where you were born, what Investiture you are aligned with, and--yes--how old you are. When you're healing yourself, you're restoring yourself to a perfect state--when you're done, everything is good. When you're changing your age, however, you are transforming yourself to something unnatural. Against what your soul understands to be true.

So the Spiritual aspect will push for a restoration to the way you should be. With this Compounding hack, you're not changing connection; it's a purely Physical Realm change.

This dichotomy cannot remain for long. And the greater the disparity, the more pressure the spirit will exert. Ten or twenty years won't matter much. A thousand will matter a lot. So the only way to use Compounding to change your age is to store up all this extra youth in a metalmind, then be constantly tapping it to counteract the soul's attempt to restore you to how you should be.

Yes, all of this means there are FAR more efficient means of counteracting aging than the one used by the Lord Ruler. It's a hack, and not meant to be terribly efficient. Eventually, he wouldn't have been able to maintain himself this way at all. Changing Connection (or even involving ones Cognitive Aspect a little more) would have been far more efficient, though actively more difficult.

This implies to me that different Ferchemical attributes (metals) may behave slightly differently depending on how that F-Attribute is impacted by your Spiritweb and Cognitive Self. Therefore, some of those properties become part of the filter.

This also implies to me that the amount stored in the metalmind has at least some impact, since it implies that TLR had to store more and compound more to get the same result. If 1 allomantic metal IU of F-Atium only ever resulted in 10 IUs of Age when burned, it seems TLR would have run out of compounded age long ago or quickly gotten to the point where all he could do 24/7 was eat and burn Atium since the smallest IU of age would be insufficient to roll back centuries of age.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

What happens if you burn duralumin while Compounding?

Brandon Sanderson

Duralumin while Compounding. So, what duralumin does is it burns out of all of your metal in one burst. So it doesn't necessarily gain you power, it makes it all happen at the same time. The same thing would happen.

Questioner

Could you turn into a baby?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, you could totally turn into a baby. That is within the power of using that, doing <health [Age?] wrong>, yeah you could totally... You'd be really dangerous.

Questioner

But it wouldn't really do much?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh it would have explosive... it does things really fast. That's what it does. Yes you could achieve very powerful sudden effects through that. It'd be scary. Controlling it can be dangerous, regardless of which metal you use.

Note: Where BS has "<health wrong>" I noted he probably meant age - since compounded health should never turn you into a child, but duralumin burned compounded youth might. But it still implies to me that the amount of stored youth matters to the compounding. If that was not the case, then a duralumin burned Atium-mind could never result in a enough youth, when burned, to age back to childhood.

*****

My Conclusions: At its most basic, Compounding changes the metal's filter from Allomancy to Feruchemy - but part of that filter is the multiplier quantity of the attribute and is also spread across the qty of IUs of metal. Since burning (without duralumin) is a small release over time (that can be increased by "flaring" - but with a maximum cap based on allomantic strength) any qty of feruchemical storage in a metalmind would be divided by the IUs of allomantic metal in the storage before being multiplied by burning the IUs into feruchemical investiture. A notional "100 multipler" burned into "1000 times F-Attribute" isn't really possible, because a metalmind storing "100 times attribute" would be too large to swallow and burn - and any shavings from said metalmind would, by necessity, be a relative fraction of the starting "100 time attribute" worth of storage. Intent, and (implied) command are also a factor of how the effect is expressed.

So, the amount stored matters - the size of the metalmind matters but both are simply variables in the total equation so it is not as simple as "any storage is that same as full storage" nor as simple as "qty of storage x 10."

Ideas, thoughts, conclusions?

Really nicely put together, however I will point out that the WoB mentioning multipliers said that feruchemy is about multipliers. Which is true, storing half strength to become 1.5x as strong etc. But doesn't say compounding is about multipliers.

Now you are correct, the amount of charge is relevant, but I think it is, only so far as the amount of metal you can compound, not as part of a multiplier.

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Really nicely put together, however I will point out that the WoB mentioning multipliers said that feruchemy is about multipliers. Which is true, storing half strength to become 1.5x as strong etc. But doesn't say compounding is about multipliers.

Now you are correct, the amount of charge is relevant, but I think it is, only so far as the amount of metal you can compound, not as part of a multiplier.

I took "Feruchemy is about multipliers" to mean that multiplicative properties are inherent to the magic system. Which may mean that is why compounding works in the first place (a multiplicative property of feruchemy being exploited). I did not intend to imply a direct, for example, "double strength becomes 20 times strength" compounding relationship.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Frustration he/him]

14 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I took "Feruchemy is about multipliers" to mean that multiplicative properties are inherent to the magic system. Which may mean that is why compounding works in the first place (a multiplicative property of feruchemy being exploited). I did not intend to imply a direct, for example, "double strength becomes 20 times strength" compounding relationship.

Oh, alright. Your analysis looks good to me.

[Tglassy]

I tried to read all that, I really did, but it got a little complicated for me.  

The way I read it, is you burn pewter, you get, say, double strength, though I don't think it's exactly double.  But let's say double.  You burn pewter you get double strength.

You store Strength in a Pewtermind, you are now half strength, and the other half is getting stored.  Keep in mind, Wax only has the one set of Ironminds and he stores weight constantly, and a single gold bracer is enough to store "heaps and heaps" of healing.  Enough that Wayne could go splat and still heal himself and not really put much of a dent in it.  

Ok, so you go half strength for a day.  Now the Pewtermind has enough in it to give you 1.5 strength for a day.  Ok.  cool.  Or 3x strength for half a day.  Or...you get the picture. 

So you are a twinborn with Pewter/Pewter.  You then burn A-Pewter.  You are now at double strength.  You then store half of that doubled strength in a Metalmind.  You do this for a day.  Now you have a Pewtermind with enough strength to give you 2x Strength for a day.  You can EASILY fit this amount in a small ring.  

Pewter is pretty soft, so you break it into small chunks and eat them, if the ring itself it too big.  You put on another ring, and burn the first.  Instead of gaining Allomantic Pewter from it, you gain just the strength, but you net 10x as much strength as you put in.  You shunt ALL of that into the second ring.  If it doesn't fit, grab another ring, but this doesn't seem like enough to not fit in one ring.  It might take time, but you just flare the pewter and shunt all the extra strength, which is just strength and not all the balance and healing and all that, into the second ring.  

Once you are done burning that ring, and putting all the resulting power into the second one, you now have a ring that is holding 10 days worth of double strenth, or five days worth of quadruple strenth, etc.  

Now do it again.  Eat the ring.  Grab another, or a bracelet if a ring is too small.  Do the same thing. You now have a bracelet with 100 days worth of double strenth, or fifty days worth of quadruple strenth, or 25 days worth of 8x strength.  

Take that bracelet, which is made of pewter, which is pretty tiny, and break it into 10 chunks, each with 10 days worth of double strength in it.  

Eat one and use it to make a Bracelet with 100 days worth of double strenth.  Save the rest.  If that bracelet ever starts to get low, eat another chunk and refil it.  In fact, if 100 days worth of double strenth isn't enough, do it again for one more round and you'll have a bracelet with 1000 days of double strength, which you can then break into ten chunks of 100 days each.  

You don't burn the chunks when you need to use it, you burn them and immediately store all the energy they provide in a different metalmind.  That way, it's accessible any time you need it.  

Miles did this with Gold, which is why he always had infinite healing. He had about 30 metalminds, all imbeded in his skin.  He'd take a ring, store some health, eat it, burn it while funneling the health into a different ring, and do this a few rounds until he had thousands of days worth of health, which he would then store in his embeded metalminds.  He wouldn't have to burn them, at this point, he'd just have all that health stored up.  In fact, he wouldn't want to burn the embeded metalminds, cause then he'd have to embed new ones. 

Youth works differently, because your spirit knows you're getting older, and it wants your body to be the age it's supposed to be.  So at the beginniing, it's relatively easy to compound Atium and keep age at bay.  But it slowly takes more and more Youth to combat the ever increasing age.  Eventually, All you are doing is compounding age.  Apparently, a thousand years is really the limit of how long you can live with compounding youth.  But strength and health wouldn't have these issues.  It wouldn't take constantly more and more Strength to keep you at double strength.  

My main point is that if you are storing the strength granted by Allomancy, then you are not also storing the resulting muscle mass, or at least there is a way to do so.  This way, you can tap as much strength as you need without making yourself infinitely large, which would just slow you down.  You basically become Luke Cage. 

[Frustration he/him]

5 hours ago, Tglassy said:

I tried to read all that, I really did, but it got a little complicated for me.  

The way I read it, is you burn pewter, you get, say, double strength, though I don't think it's exactly double.  But let's say double.  You burn pewter you get double strength.

You store Strength in a Pewtermind, you are now half strength, and the other half is getting stored.  Keep in mind, Wax only has the one set of Ironminds and he stores weight constantly, and a single gold bracer is enough to store "heaps and heaps" of healing.  Enough that Wayne could go splat and still heal himself and not really put much of a dent in it.  

Ok, so you go half strength for a day.  Now the Pewtermind has enough in it to give you 1.5 strength for a day.  Ok.  cool.  Or 3x strength for half a day.  Or...you get the picture. 

So you are a twinborn with Pewter/Pewter.  You then burn A-Pewter.  You are now at double strength.  You then store half of that doubled strength in a Metalmind.  You do this for a day.  Now you have a Pewtermind with enough strength to give you 2x Strength for a day.  You can EASILY fit this amount in a small ring.  

Pewter is pretty soft, so you break it into small chunks and eat them, if the ring itself it too big.  You put on another ring, and burn the first.  Instead of gaining Allomantic Pewter from it, you gain just the strength, but you net 10x as much strength as you put in.  You shunt ALL of that into the second ring.  If it doesn't fit, grab another ring, but this doesn't seem like enough to not fit in one ring.  It might take time, but you just flare the pewter and shunt all the extra strength, which is just strength and not all the balance and healing and all that, into the second ring.  

Once you are done burning that ring, and putting all the resulting power into the second one, you now have a ring that is holding 10 days worth of double strenth, or five days worth of quadruple strenth, etc.  

Now do it again.  Eat the ring.  Grab another, or a bracelet if a ring is too small.  Do the same thing. You now have a bracelet with 100 days worth of double strenth, or fifty days worth of quadruple strenth, or 25 days worth of 8x strength.  

Take that bracelet, which is made of pewter, which is pretty tiny, and break it into 10 chunks, each with 10 days worth of double strength in it.  

Eat one and use it to make a Bracelet with 100 days worth of double strenth.  Save the rest.  If that bracelet ever starts to get low, eat another chunk and refil it.  In fact, if 100 days worth of double strenth isn't enough, do it again for one more round and you'll have a bracelet with 1000 days of double strength, which you can then break into ten chunks of 100 days each.  

You don't burn the chunks when you need to use it, you burn them and immediately store all the energy they provide in a different metalmind.  That way, it's accessible any time you need it.  

Miles did this with Gold, which is why he always had infinite healing. He had about 30 metalminds, all imbeded in his skin.  He'd take a ring, store some health, eat it, burn it while funneling the health into a different ring, and do this a few rounds until he had thousands of days worth of health, which he would then store in his embeded metalminds.  He wouldn't have to burn them, at this point, he'd just have all that health stored up.  In fact, he wouldn't want to burn the embeded metalminds, cause then he'd have to embed new ones. 

Youth works differently, because your spirit knows you're getting older, and it wants your body to be the age it's supposed to be.  So at the beginniing, it's relatively easy to compound Atium and keep age at bay.  But it slowly takes more and more Youth to combat the ever increasing age.  Eventually, All you are doing is compounding age.  Apparently, a thousand years is really the limit of how long you can live with compounding youth.  But strength and health wouldn't have these issues.  It wouldn't take constantly more and more Strength to keep you at double strength.  

My main point is that if you are storing the strength granted by Allomancy, then you are not also storing the resulting muscle mass, or at least there is a way to do so.  This way, you can tap as much strength as you need without making yourself infinitely large, which would just slow you down.  You basically become Luke Cage. 

Compounding isn't multiplicative, which is what we have been saying.

If you have a piece of pewter, that you could burn allomantically for an hour and stored a days strength in it, when burned you would get a days strength, plus an hours worth of feruchemical strength, equal in power to allomantic strength, not ten days worth of strength.

[StanLemon]

The thing with compounding is that, going further on Frustration says, you just need to fill a small amount to get a lot.

There are a few important details, metals burn at a speed relative to how much it is doing. The reason Pewter burns so fast for example, is that it is doing so much. It makes you stronger, faster, tougher, heal faster, etc. 5 small beads could be flaired for an hour or so according to Vin and that's flairing so burning would last even longer. So if you instead put Strength into it and burned it, it would likely burn even longer than that as it's only one vector that A-Pewter gives. Why is this important? Because a minute or two is all the time you should need to fill those beads with Strength to Compound.

Because Compounding simply is funneling the Investiture that a Compounder pulling from the SR and shaping it by the stored Investiture in the Metalmind, it just needs enough Investiture to recognize it as the stored trait rather than the metal itself. 

Back to our Pewter example, let's say you have a small bead of metal that you stored a minute's worth of strength in. You can Compound said bead for an hour. By the end of that hour, you have 60 times the amount of Strength you had stored originally. Now let's say you stored each of those 60 minutes in a bead where each bead has one minute's worth. Spend 10 hours a day burning and storing those stores and in 6 days you now 60 hours worth of Strength. All while only having to weaken yourself for one single minute. And as we have seen from Sazed, Wax, and Wayne, it doesn't really take much attention to store a trait.

[NameIess]

I think an explanation that fixes the whole compounding thing is related to this WoB:

Spoiler

Kaymyth

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

Brandon says that invested metals take longer to affect, which most likely means it would take longer to burn them. So I propose that perhaps invested metal gives the same amount of IU/second, but takes longer to burn proportional to the amount of investiture stored within it.

[Frustration he/him]

55 minutes ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

I think an explanation that fixes the whole compounding thing is related to this WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Kaymyth

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

Brandon says that invested metals take longer to affect, which most likely means it would take longer to burn them. So I propose that perhaps invested metal gives the same amount of IU/second, but takes longer to burn proportional to the amount of investiture stored within it.

Burn time is equivalent to the amount of Investiture drawn out.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

The longest lasting of the Allomantic metals is actually copper, which is used by Smokers to hide Allomancy. Tin is second, however. Steel and Iron are actually rather quick, but since they're generally used in bursts, it's hard to notice. Both brass and zinc are medium, as is bronze. Pewter burns the fastest of the basic eight, though atium and gold both burn faster than it does.

In my mind, it's related to how much 'work' the metal has to do. That's why pewter, steel, and iron burn so quickly. A lot of weight and power is getting thrown around, while copper only has to do something simple. However, I never really set any of these things hard-fast.

And, only atium is really all that rare. Because of the value of the metals, the noble houses expended a lot of resources finding and exploiting mines to produce the metals. This resulted in a slightly higher value for most of them as opposed to our world, but not really noticeably so, because Allomancers really don't need that much metal. Even fast burning metals, like pewter, are generally only swallowed in very small amounts. (i.e. A small bit goes a long way.)

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/291/#e7820

 

Oversleep (paraphrased)

Allomantic strength. There are stronger Allomancers, they can burn metals faster, right?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, they can also squeeze more power out of it. They can use it more efficiently.

Oversleep (paraphrased)

So there is some loss of power along the way? How do savants work into that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Savants can use it way more efficiently. They are more Connected to the Shard. Closer to Spiritual Realm.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/120/#e1901

 

 

 

 

The reason leeching takes longer is that it has to burn through the Investiture before it can destroy the metal.