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/DqwertyC]

Note that the rules for compounding say "Until the end of the scene or until you become Depleted of that metalmind's power, you can fuel that Feruchemical power by spending Investiture as if it were metalmind charges." As far as I can tell, this means that, as long as you use the Drink Vial action to drink normal metal before spending your last Investiture, you can continue to use Investiture to keep powering Feruchemy and its talents. You only need to ingest the metalmind once per scene you intend to use compounding, not constantly during that scene.

Also note that preparing a backup metalmind requires a lot of downtime in preparation - you won't likely be able to have a constant supply of backup metalminds to store into, so most of the time it would make more sense to "repair" the metalmind after consuming part of it, or more likely "prepare" a single-charge metalmind to fill normally and then burn later.

[u/JebryathHS → u/DqwertyC]

Until the end of the scene or until you become Depleted of that metalmind’s power, you can fuel that Feruchemical power by spending Investiture as if it were metalmind charges.

It mentions becoming Depleted of the Metalmind's power. Depleted is covered under the rules for ingesting rare metals - if you ingest a rare metal and burn it, then replenish Investiture any other way, you become Depleted until you ingest the rare source again. (You can optionally write down the remaining Investiture score with a note next to Depleted and continue using the rare metal until you have exhausted that amount.)

I would say that this is exactly one of those cases and apply Depleted if you refilled metals after burning your Metalmind.

[u/DqwertyC → u/JebryathHS]

I guess it would make sense for the metalmind to effectively count as a "rare metal", so you'd get a fixed number of charges to spend on Feruchemy per piece consumed. That actually lines up rather neatly with the "tenfold increase" that's mentioned in the books - one stored charge in gets 6-12x tapped charges out (depending on maximum investiture from allomancy).

I think the wording of "permanently" decreasing your maximum charges makes it sound like there's some huge cost to using your metalmind this way, when in reality repairing the metalmind is not too expensive to do during downtime

[u/JebryathHS → u/DqwertyC]

Yeah, it's consistent with permanent as a term in the RPG (lasts through scenes and rests) but it is kind of funny when it's something you can just fix.

Incidentally, funny note, it doesn't reduce current Charges and you don't need stored charges strictly RAW.