What is the new Hemalurgic limit?

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

So TLM has now shown that there is now a cap on how many Hemalurgic Spikes a person can have before they just stop gaining any powers from them. So how high is the cap?

I've seen people claim that four Spikes is the limit but that's the Hemalurgic Control limit and I've never seen a hard number written down anywhere in the book or in WOB's.

My own best guess is somewhere between 4 and 11. 

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, JustQuestin2004 said:

So TLM has now shown that there is now a cap on how many Hemalurgic Spikes a person can have before they just stop gaining any powers from them. So how high is the cap?

I've seen people claim that four Spikes is the limit but that's the Hemalurgic Control limit and I've never seen a hard number written down anywhere in the book or in WOB's.

My own best guess is somewhere between 4 and 11. 

Coppermind - Receiving Attributes

Spoiler

Receiving of Attributes

There is a maximum number of spikes a person can have before causing issues of mental and/or physical limitations.^[27][28] The number of spikes a person can take has been reduced since Ruin was merged with Preservation. If too many spikes are added, the soul stops gaining powers. Compounding is also inaccessible, under normal methods, to any Hemalurgist made after the Shards merged.^[29][27] There are ways to bypass this limitation, but said ways are currently unknown. This relates to the nature of Ruin's subservience to Preservation in the current dual vessel of Harmony and something known as "Identity contamination".^[29][27]

This was likely done without a conscious decision by Harmony, and more of a byproduct of Ruin no longer pushing on the fabric of Scadrial.^[27]

TLM Ars Arcanum:

Spoiler

Modern souls, however, seem to simply reject spikes of this magnitude. Further research is required, but I believe that this has something to do with the nature of Ruin’s subservience to Preservation in the current dual vessel known as Harmony. The level of corruption of a soul that was possible in ancient days is no longer viable; if too many spikes are added, souls stop gaining powers. Marsh doesn’t think this is a conscious decision on Harmony’s part. Indeed, I think this is beyond the conscious abilities of even a Shard.

Instead, I believe this is the nature of souls (read: the Invested portion of a person’s nature) and their balance with the cosmere. In the ancient days, Ruin was pushing hard on the fabric of Scadrial, leaking into spiritwebs through any method possible. Causing souls to decay faster, to accept more spikes than they should have been able to, and leaving the resulting person burdened beyond what was reasonable.

I don't think you can point to a specific number and say "The limit is this" because different metals steal different attributes and, therefore, the amount of spiritweb (investiture) in any given hemalurgic charge will be different (not to mention hemalurgic decay - such as Wax's earring). Also, not all spiritwebs are created equal - so, I agree the "limit" is likely to be a range based on a given person's spiritweb, which spikes are used and how much decay there has been (though decay is much smaller than it was in Era 1). However, I would place the range smaller than you have, since it is implied that new Inquisitors would not be possible - since they required at least nine spikes I would guess the range is 4-8(ish).