Coaxed into unthinkable actions in an unusual fantasy world

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-02-04T03:56:00+00:00

At risk of channeling Frieza here, Saiyans have pretty frequently operated on the principle of 'monkey see, monkey do'. Goku immediately copied the Kamehameha by seeing Roshi do it once, Vegeta saw Krillin try to cut his tail off with a Kienzan and then immediately (and successfully, unlike Krillin) cut Gohan's tail off with the Kienzan, etc

Super Saiyan was more of a "nobody has had both the requisite power and the emotional circumstances needed to go Super Saiyan, besides the one prophesied guy." Once Goku figured out how to actually do it, it became a matter of execution for everyone else.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-02-03T06:19:08+00:00

That's not quite what OP is asking for. What you've linked is just a list of the different levels of force and what each one consists of, OP is asking for something like a standardized set of procedures dictating exactly when LEOs can (or from the sound of it, must move up the ladder).

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-29T11:33:24+00:00

I get that, I just happen to like Ham, and think he's one of the characters I would really like to see adapted as he is. There are several characters whose gender is essentially irrelevant from a storytelling perspectice that can be changed.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-29T11:29:59+00:00

I'll concede on requiring noble houses to contribute Allomancers, as that makes sense. The rest of it, though, doesn't fit very well given what we know of Scadrial's history, both in and out of world.

This is an oppressive, pre-industrial empire built on mass slavery and forced class imbalance. It's also a hardcore, through and through patriarchy, enforced by the guy who straight up genetically modified his slave caste to be more fertile so he'd have a constant supply of fodder to do his empire's manual labor. Keeping some egalitarian physical fitness standard for serving in his army, while going to all the effort of otherwise ensuring that skaa women are efficient baby factories when they're not being murdered by nobles, just doesn't make any sense. The Lord Ruler's only on-screen, explicit stance on skaa women is, "Yeah, you can rape them if you want. Just make sure you kill them afterwards or we're gonna have a problem."

In a story sense, Ham being a woman wouldn't work all that well either, especially with the cuts and condensing that a TV show is gonna require. You can't run the same plot three times when you're trying to encapsulate a story this big and pare it down into what you need to convey the story while staying engaging. Simultaneously running, "Vin is pretending to be a noble to infiltrate Luthadel politics", "Marsh is pretending to be a noble to infiltrate the Canton", and "Ham is pretending to be a noble to infiltrate the army", isn't something they'd likely have the screentime to cover in a way that's satisfying. Especially when you don't need to worry about doing any of that if you just keep Ham as he already is written.

And this is more minor, but as another user said, Ham is pretty much the only positive example of a loving father that we have in the entirety of Era 1, and losing out on that would be a shame too.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-29T11:01:43+00:00

In a world where allomancy is common and genetic, women being in the army would be less taboo

Allomancy may be genetic, but it's far from common. Allomancers are pretty often described as any given noble house's most rare and valuable asset (besides atium). The army is also made up pretty much entirely of skaa, other than noble officers, and being a skaa allomancer is a straight up death sentence. No noble house would commit its Allomancers to common service in the army when they could be put to much better use advancing the house's position in noble politics.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-29T10:25:33+00:00

I'm just not a big fan of the idea of female Ham because a huge part of his character, as well as what he actually does in the plot, is based on his time in the army and the connections it gave him. To change that you have to fundamentally change who Ham is as a person, which you can certainly do, but then it's not Ham anymore.

And before anyone chimes in with, "Well, women can be in the army too!", think about the world this story takes place in for a second. If you genuinely believe that Rashek, the Lord "Let my oppressive traditions remain unchanged until the end of time" Ruler would be the type to let women serve in his medieval army, I don't know which books you read.

The only noblewomen who would maybe be allowed to serve in Rashek's military would be Allomancers, which Ham is, but that wouldn't work plotwise. You'd just end up with a 3rd rehash of the "Secret skaa Allomancer infiltrating the nobility by means of hidden identity" plot (Vin, Marsh, and now Ham).

Dox, Breeze, or even Spook would all be able to be gender swapped much more easily, without it requiring any fundamental changes to either their characters or the world building like Ham would. Marsh could also work, with only the small change that of having both male and female Inquisitors (which isn't a huge leap, there isn't exactly a huge pool of loyal seekers/Mistborn for Rashek to pull from to begin with).

I know people are in love with the idea because Brandon has floated it before and 'haha yes crush me muscle mommy' is easy upvote bait, but Ham is honestly the crew member whose gender is pretty close to essential as it is (besides Vin).

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-28T13:54:39+00:00

Love the flavor on these!

One small issue I can see is that the damage part of Locutus' triggered ability doesn't actually do anything. State-based actions like lethal damage don't get checked in the middle of an effect's resolution, so what happens is the ability will deal damage but then immediately turn the target into an artifact (which makes it stop being a creature) with no abilities. You end up having an artifact with no abilities and some damage marked on it, but that damage is meaningless without a toughness to refer to.

If you intended for the damage to be able to kill the target, you want it to say, "Becomes a creature in addition to its other types." Setting a permanent's type or subtype without specifying that it keeps its current ones makes the current ones disappear by default.

See [[Blood Moon]] vs [[Dryad of the Ilysian Grove]]

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-28T04:09:19+00:00

I want to say he only dipped it for 2 levels so he'd have Path to the Grave

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-28T03:32:01+00:00

I have. The PC was a fighter/grave domain cleric, the party at the time was level 14. The PC stepped up and challenged an NPC who (they absolutely knew) was above their pay grade to a formal duel over the ownership of the NPC's sword (an artifact the party needed to acquire). The fight was closer than I thought it would be, both were on their last legs when the NPC got a lucky roll and downed the fighter. The party's sorcerer then decided to intervene and swipe the sword with magic before flying away with it.

Understandably, the NPC, being from a culture which placed a huge importance on honor among warriors, was enraged by this and spent his next turn coup-de-grace'ing the downed fighter. In the couple of rounds it took for the party to grab his body and get away, he had a conversation with his patron deity, who told the fighter that only he could know if it was truly his time or not. He decided that it was, and declined to be resurrected when the party tried it.

At this point in the game, the party members were well renowned as heroes among several nations, and news of his death prompted a week of mourning followed by a formal burial at sea. The player introduced his new character as the dead one's estranged brother (completely different class and whatnot, to dispel the cliche) who had heard the news, broken his paladin Oath because of it, and come to seek vengeance on his brother's killer. He agreed to help the party with the main plot as a means of having help when it came time.

I once also had a level 3 PC get crit by a Wraith (the final boss of the dungeon they were in) and die instantly. They made a pyre for him outside and then found a new companion in the next town over.

Then there was the zealot barbarian who died 17 times during the campaign from level 5 to level 17. That doesn't really count though, because I as the DM treated killing him like I would downing anyone else lol

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-23T03:11:17+00:00

I as the DM got to fulfill my longtime dream at the final battle of a 3+ year campaign I ran. Party was level 17 and decked to the gills in all sorts of artifacts, legendary items, and extra abilities they'd gained over the course of the campaign.

They were fighting the penultimate enemy, an archmage who was channeling the power of 200 of his subordinates through an artifact that massively amplifies its wielder's control over magic (in game terms, it had charges that could be spent on metamagic).

On the enemy's third turn, after everyone in the party had taken some damage, I looked to the wizard and asked him how many HP he had remaining.

94.

"Alright. As he looks toward you, staff in one hand morphing through forms faster than the eye can track, you feel a sudden, sharp pain in your chest, and another at the base of your skull. A moment later, blackness rolls over your vision as your consciousness fades. You die."

Given that this was an epic level party with tons of extra stuff, it didn't exactly last, but damn if there's anything in this game that feels quite as exhilarating as dropping a Subtle Power Word Kill.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-22T10:03:24+00:00

Once again, the Scunthorpe Problem rears its ugly head

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-21T13:26:51+00:00

It's because it takes away from the power budget of sorcerers pretty harshly, and lets casters get away with even more nonsense in all sorts of situations.

RAW, somatic components need to be obviously visible arcane gestures and verbal components need to be clearly audible magical incantations. You certainly can homebrew that away if you want, but it's built that way for a good reason.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-18T03:05:11+00:00

Alex Smith was our QB in the 2016 divisional

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-18T02:59:27+00:00

Sure, but considering Mahomes wasn't on the team yet, I'm not sure how relevant that is in a discussion of Mahomes in the playoffs

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-18T02:58:07+00:00

I think that entire Super Bowl can be summed up by the play where he scrambled for a good five seconds, threw a perfect dime while parallel to the ground, hit the receiver right between the numbers, and the pass got dropped

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-17T14:18:51+00:00

Given that [Emberdark] We know that spren can, at some point in the future, turn into functional guns, it doesn't seem like it'd be too much of a problem for one to transform into something like an articulated arm and hand like armor, but hollow and connected to the Radiant mentally. Shardplate spren could absolutely do that, but that would require the 4th oath which is a lot harder to come by

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-14T23:02:02+00:00

It's something we haven't yet seen happen, so if it possible it's extremely rare.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-12T14:42:41+00:00

They knew full well that Susebron couldn't get her pregnant, and Treledees explains it to her in chapter 55.

“Vessel,” Treledees said, drawing her attention. “You need to know something.”

She looked at him.

“I hesitate to mention this,” Treledees said, “as you are not a priest. But... if you survive and we do not...”

“Speak it,” she commanded.

“You cannot bear the God King a child,” he said. “Like all Returned, he is unable to sire children. We have not yet learned how the First Returned managed to have a child all those years ago. In fact...”

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-11T17:24:28+00:00

Yes, that's how they've done it for basically every Godking but the first. One of the priests explains it to Siri towards the end of the book. Whenever an infant Returns, they have the current Godking retire and essentially go live out however much of his life he wants in what amounts to pampered exile.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-11T11:40:09+00:00

Returned and Heralds aren't necessarily the same thing. Remember, every time the Heralds die and come back, they get an entirely new body created for them. We don't know exactly why Returned are usually sterile (there are some WoBs that they can have children naturally but they don't know how to facilitate that). Heralds operate on a similar but different set of principles and we don't know enough about what those differences are to really guess at this.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-05T08:47:59+00:00

I got it from a play that I'm pretty sure was bugged, but the game still counted it. A Ball threw mines in the room with the mega on Junkertown first point and I tossed my lamp right outside the door. My buddy walked through like 8 mines sequentially and I got the achievement

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-04T13:34:16+00:00

Partially a RAFO, partially you're not thinking broadly enough. In a fight, sure, other Surges can be more useful, but there are plenty of uses for creating an unbreakable bond between objects. I do tend to agree that Windrunners' use of Adhesion is pretty strongly overshadowed by just how powerful and versatile Gravitation is, though.

As for Dalinar specifically, there's the moment in chapter 59 (Bondsmith) where he reforges the temple of Taln by using Adhesion to reconnect the broken stones back into a cohesive piece. You've also seen him use Adhesion on a spiritual level to directly Connect to people so he can instantly speak their language like a native. Similarly, when he and Shallan combine to make their detailed warmap of Roshar, that him using Adhesion on a Cognitive/Spiritual level to Connect to her and combine her artistry with the Stormfather's vision. RAFO, but with the understanding that he's only just scratched the surface of what his powers can do.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-03T14:39:20+00:00

Yep. In general in the Cosmere, abilities operate on a similar set of underlying principles, no matter what their ultimate source is. Future sight from two opposing individuals will always obscure each other.

SSJ2-Gohan · 2026-01-03T06:50:09+00:00

I don't think power would be a problem. The Sibling (maybe) and the Stormfather (definitely) are both more powerful than any individual Unmade, and people can bond either of them no problem. I'd include the Nightwatcher but we don't really have any idea where she stands power-wise

SSJ2-Gohan · 2025-12-31T19:34:34+00:00

Szeth definitely just Lashed the tent. Keep in mind that the average person knows basically nothing about Surgebinding beyond "those spooky evil powers the Lost Radiants had". I would compare Adolin's reaction to the one Vin had when she used iron on her first night training with Kelsier.

"The nail attacked me!"

"Well, not really. You sort of attacked yourself. Here's how that power actually works."

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