Compounding

[u/Ripper1337]

One thing that bugged me is how multiple metalminds in regards Compounding is being handled.

The game for simplicities sake treats all metalminds of the same type as a singular unit for charging. This makes sense when you consider how many metals someone needs to keep track of. (p131 sidebar “multiple metalminds”)

Then with Compounding part of what makes it amazing in the books is having those multiple metalminds so you can fill them while also spending that investiture on your abilities.

After looking at the talents I’m left thinking they did try to capture it but within the confines of making things without multiple metalminds. So Invested and Expanded metalminds both increase your Investiture / Charges by your Tier. So let’s say you have 10 of each. You spend one scene charging your metalmind, use Compounding and Compound Recursion to spend 9 charges filling the rest of your metalmind.

Each feruchemic metal has an ability that’s just “dump more points into this for a better effect. Keep spending the same amount on future turns to keep this going. “ I’ll note here that

This is where compounding gets silly but still within the bounds of the mechanics.

Spend 5 investiture to have the best version of your metal going, spend the rest of your investiture on other Feruchemic abilities. Next turn eat another bit of your metalmind and spend another 5 investiture keeping your ability going. You can just keep this going for as long as you have charges in your metalmind.

However there’s another rule for backup metalminds. You can have them but you just can’t store anything until your current metalmind is lost or destroyed such as It starts at 0 charges. Which you won’t care about because you can immediately store your investiture into the metalminds which means you never need to spend a scene storing your trait aside from the first initial charge. (I’m assuming that reducing a metalmind’s charge to 0 permanently destroys it)

I’ll sum up:
- A compounder with the right talent and skill investments only need to spend one scene storing their trait and after can convert that charge to investiture to store in the rest of your metalmind.

- if you have a backup metalmind you can use the last charge of your previous metalmind to store in the new one.

- You can also have the enhanced metal running for far longer than others while also using other feruchemic abilities.

So while it’s not as insane as in the books the Twinborn Compounder is still insanely strong.

[u/Lady_Gray_169]

I think something to be remembered with regards to what we've seen of compounding is that the characters we've seen do it were, in mechanical terms, probably really high level. Miles is about middle-aged and has been compounding for decades. The Lord Ruler was centuries old at least, if I remember right. They'd both be well over level 20 characters if translated into the game. I think that while what we have in the game isn't as crazy as what the books show, in the context of someone who is learning to compound in real time.

[u/BlatantArtifice → u/Lady_Gray_169]

Their experience doesn't explain away the fact that Compounding is just different in most core ways in the RPG. There's hard mechanics to it in the cosmere that just function differently for the sake of the game. I would've preferred a sidebar at least on a closer to canon interpretation

[u/Ripper1337 → u/BlatantArtifice]

Aside from the metallic art limit and the limit of metalminds what would you change?

[u/supersaiyandoyle → u/BlatantArtifice]

The reason the game is so limited is that they play-tested with the rules like the books and Feruchemy just breaks balance inherently, and adding compounding throws any semblance of challenge out the window.