My corpse is going to be shattered!

[LastOblivion]

At this point the information is backstory and not part of the question. After the beholder's trap sunk the city, the Pope's divination placed blame indirectly on our parties rouge for unknowingly activating the trap. So then the party went to plan to assassinate the Pope before his clerics could hunt our rouge down. At this point i double-crossed the party. I too had a reason to hunt down the rouge since his indirect sinking of the city destroyed my drow clan. But my double-crossed failed and both me and the Pope are now dead. The team warlock shattered the Pope into nothingness, hoping to prevent him from being raised. I worked out a plan with the DM which will allow my new character, an agent of my old character's foster father, to swoop in and try to retrive my old character's body. But I am worried the warlock will shatter the body to stop me.

Question I read into shatter and it say that a solid object, such as a corpse, can be shattered. But it only claims that there is a weight per caster lv limit. So i want to know if he can shatter my body piece by piece or not at all. Can anyone help my corpse? :smallfrown:

[ahenobarbi]

More expansive version maybe (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/resurrection.htm) because for it "The condition of the remains is not a factor". Or if you can manage to use even more cash on that you don't need the body (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:True_Resurrection).

[Pilo]

I think it is a bad idea to come back with a character that plans to kill an other PC and betrays the party at the first occasion. Your old character is dead because you try something and fail. Raise him from dead will lead you to fail again or kill the game by retaliate on your former teamates.

Otherwise, Reincarnate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm) can help you as it only needs a small portion of the body at the instant of death to be casted and is a relatively low-level spell.

[Kane0]

Wait, shatter can break corpses?
*Reads Spell description again*


Alternatively, you can target shatter against a single solid object, regardless of composition, weighing up to 10 pounds per caster level.

And here I've only been using it to annoy alchemists...

I guess theres a few things you have to clear up with the Warlock and your DM:
- Is a corpse an object or still a creature?
- Is a corpse solid in the way that this spell needs it to be?
- Can this noise *annihilate* a body, even if magical in nature?

And then ask:
Is this obviously really useful spell appropriate for this use? Come on, a Warlock can get this level two spell at level one and use it infinite times per day.

All in all, a Warlock's ability to use the Dark Speech to destroy a body seems perfectly normal and in some cases expected, but the way it is implemented is definitely gray. It may take a few castings, or some parts may be left over. In a position like this, I'd bring out Rule Zero.

Hope this helps.:smallsmile:

[ahenobarbi]

I think it is a bad idea to come back with a character that plans to kill an other PC and betrays the party at the first occasion. Your old character is dead because you try something and fail. Raise him from dead will lead you to fail again or kill the game by retaliate on your former teamates.


Good point. Some people enjoy playing a group of back-stabbing characters but make sure your group does before re-claiming the old character.



Otherwise, Reincarnate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/reincarnate.htm) can help you as it only needs a small portion of the body at the instant of death to be casted and is a relatively low-level spell.

Yes this is a good cheap one.


Wait, shatter can break corpses?
*Reads Spell description again*



And here I've only been using it to annoy alchemists...

I guess theres a few things you have to clear up with the Warlock and your DM:
- Is a corpse an object or still a creature?
- Is a corpse solid in the way that this spell needs it to be?
- Can this noise *annihilate* a body, even if magical in nature?

And then ask:
Is this obviously really useful spell appropriate for this use? Come on, a Warlock can get this level two spell at level one and use it infinite times per day.

All in all, a Warlock's ability to use the Dark Speech to destroy a body seems perfectly normal and in some cases expected, but the way it is implemented is definitely gray. It may take a few castings, or some parts may be left over. In a position like this, I'd bring out Rule Zero.

Hope this helps.:smallsmile:

Corpse is a creature (rise dead rises "dead creature touched) but I'd say it's an object too. And apparently OPs DM thinks so too. But shatter would not completely destroy body parts. It would only shatter them and make a horrible mess.

[GolemsVoice]

Even if shatter wouldn't work, aren't there many ways to destroy a body? Burn it, hack it apart, grind it into paste, the works.

[Dire Panda]

I guess Shatter is more of a "Splatter" in this case, but there's no reason it shouldn't work on corpses. You can get around the 10lbs/level limit by dismembering said corpse and targeting each piece individually. Like others have said, there's no problem balance-wise with Shattering a corpse, since fire and other methods are readily available.

That being said, don't expect a splattered corpse to stop the Pope from coming back to life (based on that title, I'd assume he has a subordinate of high enough level to cast Resurrection/True Resurrection), and don't worry about the same thing happening to your old character. Just have the new one bring a spoon and a jar.

[sreservoir]

but but how much of a corpse is solid? surely it contains a bunch of liquids and dissolved gases and trapped gases in it, what happens to them?

is a corpse a single object?

[ahenobarbi]

Let's derail another thread by discussing shatter. Please. If you feel like discussing it create a separate thread.

[Siosilvar]

Let's derail another thread by discussing shatter. Please. If you feel like discussing it create a separate thread.

So you'd prefer the question not be answered? The discussion is completely relevant:


Question I read into shatter and it say that a solid object, such as a corpse, can be shattered. But it only claims that there is a weight per caster lv limit. So i want to know if he can shatter my body piece by piece or not at all. Can anyone help my corpse? :smallfrown:

[CTrees]

Even if shatter wouldn't work, aren't there many ways to destroy a body? Burn it, hack it apart, grind it into paste, the works.

Great, now I'm hungry :smallannoyed:

Oh, that's a good one! Eat it!

_____________________

More seriously, one of my favorite methods of corpse disposal in D&D ends with lots of tiny bits in a pool of water, and a casting of Purify Food and Drink.

[LastOblivion]

thanks for the input so far

I'm starting to gather a general idea of the limitations of the shatter spell.
but if a warlock can use it infinitely, doesn't that allow him absolute power of destruction in the case of objects?

what if a lv 10 warlock decides to shatter a hole through a castle wall? at lv 10 he would have the power to shatter 6000 pounds of stone a minute. So then as long as it non-magical and non-living he can destroy it. Then whats to stop him from crashing the cave down on the dragon or the castle on the king? Can't he turn a dwarven or drow city to rubble by shattering the support structures?

now here is the area of grey I'm trying to understand, can a warlock shatter something piece by piece? Can he declare he is going to shatter only a part of the object to overcome his weight per lv limit? Or is that against the rules as intended?

Now since the bodies are too heavy as they are, can he just shatter them by declaring he will shatter up to his weight limit until it is finished or does the weight negate the spell altogether?

[Jack Zander]

Shatter targets a single object, and if that object is above the weight limit, the spell fails. A warlock has little hope of destroying castle walls (though disintegrate can do the trick). However, bodies can easily be dismembered and shattered from there.

And I'm almost certain corpses are objects, not creatures. Kinda makes Raise Dead worthless. Never noticed that rule quirk before!

[only1doug]

At this point the information is backstory and not part of the question. After the beholder's trap sunk the city, the Pope's divination placed blame indirectly on our parties rouge for unknowingly activating the trap. So then the party went to plan to assassinate the Pope before his clerics could hunt our rouge down. At this point i double-crossed the party. I too had a reason to hunt down the rouge since his indirect sinking of the city destroyed my drow clan. But my double-crossed failed and both me and the Pope are now dead. The team warlock shattered the Pope into nothingness, hoping to prevent him from being raised. I worked out a plan with the DM which will allow my new character, an agent of my old character's foster father, to swoop in and try to retrive my old character's body. But I am worried the warlock will shatter the body to stop me.

Question I read into shatter and it say that a solid object, such as a corpse, can be shattered. But it only claims that there is a weight per caster lv limit. So i want to know if he can shatter my body piece by piece or not at all. Can anyone help my corpse? :smallfrown:

I can see where it all went wrong for your group, next time you should take a trapsmith and leave the red colouration behind.

Applications of shatter beyond the weight limit by caster level: it doesn't really matter what we say, your GM will make that call.

[ahenobarbi]

Let's derail another thread by discussing shatter. Please. If you feel like discussing it create a separate thread.


So you'd prefer the question not be answered? The discussion is completely relevant:

It's irrelevant because DM already decided that shatter can affect bodies. And even if OP would convince DM to change the ruling it wouldn't help the case because there are many ways to get rid of a body in d&d (some even worse for recovery than shattering).

[LastOblivion]

well that should be all i need to argue that my corpse cannot be shattered right away. Now my new SwordSage/Binder/Ur-Priest can sweep into the confusion, grab the body and make a get away.

my fear was that finding a skilled cleric, not killed in the exchange, capable of casting resurrection would be difficult on such short notice.

knowing this the warlock would most likely attempt to shatter the body to prevent an easy raise dead.

Now that i can argue that he must first cut up the body into shatter-able chunks. With that he wont have enough time to do so before i can act.

And that's not even counting the fact the party really should leave the scene of the battle before the duke and his forces arrive to investigate the firefight. Seeing that the party leader, our favor soul, is currently at 0 str and laying in a pile of entangle spells (my handy work before i was brought down my an eldritch blast), they have more to worry about then stopping my new character.

so i thank you all for the help, now i can argue the DM into prevent the direct shatter and make my escape.

[King Atticus]

Corpse is a creature (rise dead rises "dead creature touched) but I'd say it's an object too. And apparently OPs DM thinks so too. But shatter would not completely destroy body parts. It would only shatter them and make a horrible mess.


And I'm almost certain corpses are objects, not creatures. Kinda makes Raise Dead worthless. Never noticed that rule quirk before!

A corpse is an object, a creature has to be a living or otherwise active being (PHB 306). The 'Dead Creature Touched' is a just descriptor meaning it used to be a creature, it was a way to make the target known in an easier to understand way than saying 'that pile of offal right there'.

[ahenobarbi]

And I hoped it was a hint that after all you can take actions after dying :smallwink: