How strong is Vin when burning Pewter?

[AnimeTusk he/him]

In your opinion, how much stronger than an average human is Vin when burning pewter? When flaring pewter? 10x stronger? 20x stronger?

 

I ask because I'm trying to set up a Mistborn RPG (while not using the official Mistborn RPG, but a simpler system). I'm using average humans as a baseline for stats and adjusting them for the characters. I'm using Vin as a test case. But, my friends and I can't agree on how much more powerful, as a Mistborn burning metals, Vin is when compared to an average human.

 

I first thought Vin was 20x more powerful, but then I wondered if that was too powerful. Also, I got the impression that flaring increased the power by 1/4th or 1/3rd.

 

So, I come to you, the rabid ... um ... obsessive ... no ... intensely appreciative  fans of Brandon Sanderson, for your thoughts.

[Shardlet he/him]

For this question, since it is directly related to the RPG, it may be best to ask it on the RPG site.  To get there, simply click the tab near the top of any 17S page that says Mistborn RPG.  That will probably be your best resource.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

For this question, since it is directly related to the RPG, it may be best to ask it on the RPG site.  To get there, simply click the tab near the top of any 17S page that says Mistborn RPG.  That will probably be your best resource.

 

Eh... I don't think so.  Mistborn: Inquistition is not run using the MAG and combat is incredibly rare, and when it does occur it is choreographed before hand.  Dice don't factor into it.  Granted it is worth a try but things happen very slowly over there, here is the best place for it to be seen.  Perhaps someone with the MAG could chime in?

[Shardlet he/him]

My bad.  I did not realize there was more than one RPG.

[king of nowhere]

a 10x strenght is inconsistent with the books. I don't know if anyone has good data on it, but my guess would be a 2x. kelsier flaring pewter get caned on the ribs by normal people and barely avoids cracked bones. that's not 10x. if kelsier had 10x strenght, he would just punch one of the shields and thus shatter the arm of the guy holding it, or pick people and throw them around like they were pebbles.

[Shardlet he/him]

Recall also though, that pewter allows her to toe to toe and match blows with a 12 foot Koloss.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Shardlet

[king of nowhere]

Recall also though, that pewter allows her to toe to toe and match blows with a 12 foot Koloss.

Not really. the koloss was implied to be much stronger. Vin had agility, so she could dodge the koloss blows. if they went into arm-wrestling, the koloss would have won easily.

[Moogle]

I don't think it applies a modifier on your strength. It seems, more or less, to be a flat added amount of strength you get - which Vin puts to great use, by being so small. Implementing the mechanics of that is likely to be somewhat challenging, so I suppose doing a 1.5x-2x modifier would be pretty reasonable, and a bit more while flaring.

[Claincy he/him]

Ok I'll dump the MAG info here. They may differ slightly from canon but I think its fairly reasonable in this case.

 

In the MAG everyone has a physique stat, where about 4 represents an average fit person and a 5 is someone who has trained their body to a very good physical state.

 

In the MAG your pewter rating adds directly to your physique score and flaring adds an extra 1 on top of that. A standard misting from character creation has a rating of 5.

[AnimeTusk he/him]

lord_Ffnord, so you add, to whatever their physique stat is, an addition rank of 5 (physically trained and in good shape) for burning pewter. That is nearly saying burning pewter gives 2x strength and other physical abilities. What about flaring? An additional 1/4th or 1/3rd, say an increase by 2, for flaring?

 

Seems that when burning duralumin, whatever your rank in any metal would double for that brief instant. So, 5 would become 10 for that instant.

[Miyabi he/him]

What type of system are you using for this RPG of yours for combat? There are many ways you could implement someone Burning Pewter. Allow an avoidance roll with every attack, in order to take into account the agility and dexterity provided by the Pewter. Perhaps these would require a bonus for Burning Pewter, or perhaps the fact that they are happening at all makes up for the fact. Then when it comes to checking for whether or not the enemy is doing damage or how much damage allow the person Burning Pewter to roll an extra d4 with their primary roll (or d2 if your system is closer to a d10 instead of d20.) If they are flaring make it a d6 or 8 instead. Do something similar for when they are attacking. Add extra stats or an extra die when you check for them hitting the opponent since they have an agility and dexterity advantage. Then when calculating damage use an extra d4 or 6 depending on if they are just Burning or Flaring.

If you're not using a dice system I could maybe come up with another way to implement a "Pewtercheck."

Using this kind of modifier will save you from a lot of math or other headaches. Burning Pewter? Just add dice.

I feel as if this sized dice would provide a fairly analogous relationship as to Bruning Pewter while playing a d10 or d20 based system.

Edited September 10, 2013 by Miyabi

[Claincy he/him]

lord_Ffnord, so you add, to whatever their physique stat is, an addition rank of 5 (physically trained and in good shape) for burning pewter. That is nearly saying burning pewter gives 2x strength and other physical abilities. What about flaring? An additional 1/4th or 1/3rd, say an increase by 2, for flaring?

 

Seems that when burning duralumin, whatever your rank in any metal would double for that brief instant. So, 5 would become 10 for that instant.

Yeah, you could simplify to say that pewter doubles. But it does depend a bit on how good they are with pewter and how fit they were to start with. (ratings can go from 1 to 10).

 

Flaring is a bit underwhelming in the MAG to be honest. It only adds one. From canon I think it should be adding maybe a further 50% of the strenght/speed/agility/etc that they get from normal burning. The reduction is almost certainly a balance thing.

 

That is a reasonable interpretation of duralumin in my opinion. The MAG does things a bit differently. For this to make sense I'm going to have to do a quick rundown of how rolls work in the MAG.

 

You form a dice-pool of 2-10 dice then add/subtract modifiers. The highest pair out of 1-5 that you get is your "outcome" . (any 6's you get are called "nudges" which can be used for small bonuses, eg +1 damage in combat or a flourish or similar).

 

Some rolls also have a difficulty which you have to meet to succeed. For example a difficulty 3 roll requires you to roll a pair of 3's, 4's or 5's to succeed. Your final outcome is your outcome - the difficulty and that determines how succesfuly you were. If it is positive, you succeed! and the more positive it is the better your success, if it is negative, you fail, and the lower the number the worse you failed.

 

Returning now to duralumin. In the MAG a character will have a rating with duralumin, just like the have a physique rating and a pewter rating. They can use duralumin to either:

 

-increase the outcome of the roll by half their duralumin rating.

 

Example, a mistborn is trying to break down a door that has a difficulty of 3 to break. and burns duralumin as well as pewter. Let's say they have a rating of 4 in duralumin and decide to use this option and that they roll a pair of 2's. Without the duralumin their action would fail and the door would stand. But with duralumin they have an outcome of 2 + 2 = 4 which beats the difficulty and the door comes crashing off its hinges.

 

-Gain a number of nudges with the roll equal to their duralumin rating.

 

For example a mistborn punching someone and burning pewter with rating 4 duralumin. Could burn duralumin to get an extra 4 nudges and could turn them into extra damage if they chose. For a bit of context, most attacks in game tend to hit for around 3 damage.

 

 

If any of that wasn't clear just let me know.

[AnimeTusk he/him]

Miyabi, I'm trying to set this up in a very simple and loose RPG system called Risus, found here: http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm. The actual rules (all 6 pages of them) can be downloaded here: http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/free/risus-1p53.zip.

 

I'm using these rules options: Pumping, Hooks and Tales, and Funky Dice.

 

Pumping I'm using to represent flaring. Pumping allows you to increase the dice you use for a roll, with the risk of losing more dice than normal. (If you lose all your dice in a cliche (stat), you lose the contest/conflict.)

 

The Funky Dice option sets normal humans at 60 points (10d6; 10x6=60). Points are used to buy dice for cliches. (Here is where my original question comes in.) If Vin is approximately 2x more powerful than a normal human (when burning metals), then she is a 120 point character. IF she is 10x more powerful, then she is a 600 point character.

 

BTW, for Duralumin, I'm making it an automatic Pump of all the dice in the Mistborn cliche, so it doubles the strength, and doubles the dice loss if the roll fails. Also, since she doesn't seem to be as skilled (less finesse) at Zinc, Brass, Atium, and Gold, I'm dictating -1 die for those rolls.

 

I hope that wasn't too detailed/technical. But that is my dilemma.

[Miyabi he/him]

I wouldn't say she was even twice as strong as normal during a normal burn. Probably about 1.5x as strong as a normal person. Think, if your ribs could withstand a blow of 150 lbs/in^2 then if you were casually burning Pewter they could take 225 lbs instead. Which doesn't seem like a lot when you put it into numbers like that, but in reality it is a huge difference. I would say normally Burning the metal is probably depending on the persons innate ability with Pewter somewhere from 1.25 - 1.75 times their normal strength, while Flaring it is most likely somewhere from 2 - 3. With a Durallumin fueled Flare.... well..... That just depends on how much Pewter you have in your stomach. Haha.

So normal burn I would put a person around 75 - 105 and Flaring around 120 - 180. An easy way to decide where to put someone on this scale would be roll a d50 to decide if they're closer to 1.25 or 1.75. Then roll a d100 to decide if they're closer to a 2 Flare or a 3 Flare.

You have to remember that Allomancy is genetic and thus innate ability is a factor. Though I would probably put those at approximately the numbers you see.

Someone like Ham however, who has burned Pewter for a long time and is a Misting who only has this ability and isn't just constantly Burning it and uses it in a tricky way would probably be more along the lines of 1.75 - 2.25 baseline and 3 - 5 Flaring.

Then you have Savants like Spook. Let's say he burned Pewter instead of Tin. You would probably put him at a 2 - 4.5 baseline and a 5 - 10 Flare.

Hope this helps.

Note: I've played LOTS of PnP RPGs... lol.

[Miyabi he/him]

Also, I would decide on a random dice roll (Perhaps a d20 or d50 depending on the characters HP: I would say somewhere from 25% - 100% additional HP) to decide how much HP should be added for the character while fighting since the Pewter will allow them to take more hits than they otherwise would be able to.

[AnimeTusk he/him]

Been reading the MAG and found that pewter allows one to run up to 25 mph. Now, normal humans can sprint 12-15 mph. So, (dividing 25 by 12 and 15) pewter gives an approximate 1⅔x to 2x increase in speed. That is approximately what Miyabi and lord_Ffnord have stated. (Actually, Miyabi stated it a little lower, at 1¼x to 1¾x.) Is it reasonable to assume that same multiplier range for the other aspects of pewter burning for Vin and other Mistborn/Mistings of the same approximate power level?

Just out of curiosity, Elend, having gained Mistborn status by consuming that bead of lerasium, has undiluted power. So, what would his multiplier be? 3x? 4x? 2½x?

Edited September 12, 2013 by AnimeTusk

[Kurkistan he/him]

Keep in mind that Pewter adds right to the top: it doesn't actually care about base physique (in either the books or the MAG). So Vin burning Pewter arm wrestling Ham burning Pewter will be identical to Vin and Ham arm wrestling without Pewter.

[Windrunner he/him]

Well, assuming they have the exact same amount of Allomantic power that is.

[Kurkistan he/him]

True. Still, the main point in this context is that Pewter adds power, it doesn't multiply it.

[AnimeTusk he/him]

So, you are saying that, instead of a multiplier, pewter just adds a set number to physique. A weaker Mistborn or pewter Misting might get an increase of 3, while a strong Mistborn or pewter Misting might get an increase of 5 (the physique stat of someone physically trained and in good shape), and an exceptionally strong Mistborn or pewter Misting (Elend) could go as high as 6 or 7. Is this what you meant?

[Kurkistan he/him]

So, you are saying that, instead of a multiplier, pewter just adds a set number to physique. A weaker Mistborn or pewter Misting might get an increase of 3, while a strong Mistborn or pewter Misting might get an increase of 5 (the physique stat of someone physically trained and in good shape), and an exceptionally strong Mistborn or pewter Misting (Elend) could go as high as 6 or 7. Is this what you meant?

 

Yes.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Miyabi he/him]

Right, that's what I'm saying and it appears others are saying as well. It's not multiplicative, but additive. The amount which it adds can be affected by, pureness of Allomancy and level of savant-ness.

You might have a list like this on how much someone receives at base burning levels:

(NOTE: These numbers are just meant to show scale not my actual thoughts on what numbers should be)

Misting, who has barely any Allomantic DNA who almost never uses Pewter: 1.1 - 1.3

Misting, who has a fair amount of Allomantic DNA and uses Pewter regularly: 1.2 - 1.75

Vin before practice, someone with strong DNA, but very little practice: 1.5 - 2.1

Ham, someone with strong DNA and lots of practice: 1.75 - 2.5

Vin strong DNA and lots of practice/Elend pure DNA little practice: 2 - 3

Savant, someone who is constantly using Pewter and has been physically changed by it: 2.5 - 5

Elend Pure DNA with a lot of practice: 4 - 6

Someone with Pure DNA and is a Savant: 5 - 10

So each of these categories, and I'm sure they could be broken down further, would have a different level of strength which is added to them by the Pewter.

A secondary factor would be the purity of the Pewter, but I'm going to assume for most cases it is pure Allomantic Pewter.

[happyman he/him]

Right, that's what I'm saying and it appears others are saying as well. It's not multiplicative, but additive. The amount which it adds can be affected by, pureness of Allomancy and level of savant-ness.

You might have a list like this on how much someone receives at base burning levels:

(NOTE: These numbers are just meant to show scale not my actual thoughts on what numbers should be)

Misting, who has barely any Allomantic DNA who almost never uses Pewter: 1.1 - 1.3

Misting, who has a fair amount of Allomantic DNA and uses Pewter regularly: 1.2 - 1.75

Vin before practice, someone with strong DNA, but very little practice: 1.5 - 2.1

Ham, someone with strong DNA and lots of practice: 1.75 - 2.5

Vin strong DNA and lots of practice/Elend pure DNA little practice: 2 - 3

Savant, someone who is constantly using Pewter and has been physically changed by it: 2.5 - 5

Elend Pure DNA with a lot of practice: 4 - 6

Someone with Pure DNA and is a Savant: 5 - 10

So each of these categories, and I'm sure they could be broken down further, would have a different level of strength which is added to them by the Pewter.

A secondary factor would be the purity of the Pewter, but I'm going to assume for most cases it is pure Allomantic Pewter.

 

Nice breakdown, but I feel it would be more complete if it added flaring.

[Miyabi he/him]

Just add an additional amount to each tier for Flaring and move them about accordingly. I didn't feel Flaring was needed in a basic layout since Flaring is another flat additive which really wouldn't change the order, but provide each tier with an additional amount.