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Zeta Kai
2008-06-25, 04:43 PM
Well, I never thought this would actually come up, but the group I run actually needs statistics on corpses. Please don't ask why. Since a dead body is an object, & objects have stats (HP, hardness, Break DC, etc.), I need to know if anyone's calculated or homebrewed numbers on dead bodies. I realize that I could easily make something up, but I wanted some second opinions on this.

Anyone ever stat up a Medium Humanoid corpse?

Tengu
2008-06-25, 04:49 PM
Your group is going to fight El Cid?

AslanCross
2008-06-25, 05:50 PM
Hmmm. I don't think I want to ask why. :smalleek:

Anyway, I'd do it this way:
-HP is proportionate to the amount of HP the creature had when it was alive. Alternatively, you could use the amount of HP the creature had minus its CON bonus for each hit die.
-Hardness 0. Unless your critter has (Ex) DR of some sort, don't bother giving it any DR or hardness. Unless of course the creature has a particularly hard shell/carapace. (Su) DR shouldn't contribute to this, as the critter is dead.

Dan_Hemmens
2008-06-25, 06:04 PM
Hmmm. I don't think I want to ask why. :smalleek:

Anyway, I'd do it this way:
-HP is proportionate to the amount of HP the creature had when it was alive. Alternatively, you could use the amount of HP the creature had minus its CON bonus for each hit die.
-Hardness 0. Unless your critter has (Ex) DR of some sort, don't bother giving it any DR or hardness. Unless of course the creature has a particularly hard shell/carapace. (Su) DR shouldn't contribute to this, as the critter is dead.

If you do the "HP = HP in life thing" you probably also want to ignore HP from Class Levels, unless you're one of those types who interprets Fighters as literally being invulnerable to stab wounds.

averagejoe
2008-06-25, 06:10 PM
Please don't ask why.

Dammit, people can't just keep bringing up interesting stories and then stopping when they get to the interesting part. I want to know why. :smalltongue:


Hmmm. I don't think I want to ask why. :smalleek:

Anyway, I'd do it this way:
-HP is proportionate to the amount of HP the creature had when it was alive. Alternatively, you could use the amount of HP the creature had minus its CON bonus for each hit die.
-Hardness 0. Unless your critter has (Ex) DR of some sort, don't bother giving it any DR or hardness. Unless of course the creature has a particularly hard shell/carapace. (Su) DR shouldn't contribute to this, as the critter is dead.

The bones would have hardness, though. That stuff ain't easy to cut. It would depend on how much they want to destroy, though.

Portable Hole Full of Beer created a "dead" template that you could put on a creature, but that was mainly a joke so I don't know how useful it would be.

Deepblue706
2008-06-25, 07:57 PM
A dead body as an object. Hmm...

HP should be related to the STR score it had prior to death, minus some sort of deterioration factor. Bones are said to be harder than concrete - so there may indeed be some hardness there.

I would say HP = STR score in life - 1 if the body has been dead at least a day, another -1 if the body has been dead at least a week, another -1 if the body has been dead at least month, another -1 if the body has been dead at least 6 months, another -1 if dead at least a year, and additional -1's each year. You'd probably have to adjust if left in an open environment where vulnerable to natural consumers that break down the body.

Hardness could begin at 1/10 the CON score in life (rounded up), and degrade perhaps by 1 each year.

If used as a weapon in hands of an ogre, or something, I suppose it'd work as an improvised Club, but damage dealt to the target would automatically be dealt to the body, breaking apart as it gets smashed.

So, the average human corpse that had been left around for a day would have 9 HP, 1 hardness. Sounds okay to me.

A black great wyrm's body that had been laying in its cave for a year would have 32 HP, 2 hardness. I doubt much would remain, so I don't find that to be particularly bad. Although, dead for a day wouldn't be much a difference - 37 and 3 hardness. So, perhaps, multiply the end value by an additional .5, or an extra 50% per size category above medium. Divide by 2 for each size category smaller. Do the same multiplication/division for the degradation values provided for HP.

I suppose in an environment with many natural inhabitants, intensify the degradation process so that there's another -1 every week, not just months and beyond.

Bones themselves, however, I would give a different HP and hardness factor, altogether.

Lochar
2008-06-25, 08:01 PM
Multiplying by 1/2 is the same as dividing by 2. I"M CONFUZED!

Deepblue706
2008-06-25, 08:03 PM
Multiplying by 1/2 is the same as dividing by 2. I"M CONFUZED!

I bolded the word additional for a reason. It was meant to be interpretted as 1.5x, 2.0x, 2.5x, etc...as you progress to larger sizes.

AslanCross
2008-06-25, 11:44 PM
If you do the "HP = HP in life thing" you probably also want to ignore HP from Class Levels, unless you're one of those types who interprets Fighters as literally being invulnerable to stab wounds.

Yeah, after mulling over it all morning, this may not be as good an idea as I thought. If HP represents the ability of a living (or undead) creature to remain in combat, HP for objects is directly related to structural integrity (or operability). I don't know how exactly one would plan to operate a human corpse (:smalleek:), but I guess it would still take a fair amount of damage to totally mess up a body---probably more than it would take to actually kill someone.

Zeta Kai
2008-06-26, 12:09 AM
Yes, you're right. Upon review, I noticed that all inanimate objects have their HP rated in HP/inch of thickness, so I'm forced to conclude that the sustainable damage of a corpse is irrespective of the body's living HP. A character's HP could be interpreted as merely the damage required to sever the link between the body & the soul; the actual vessel contains much more. At 1HP/inch of thickness, I'd guess that a corpse could take a lot of punishment before becoming completely destroyed.

For simplicity's sake, I thin kit would be best if we integrate bones into the total, rather can culling those out. As much as I agree with the base logic of it, in terms of calculation, it would be too much of a headache to utilize both figures in any relevant manner.

Chronos
2008-06-26, 02:16 AM
If it helps any, leather or hide (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#tableCommonArmorWeaponAndShieldHar dnessAndHitPoints) has a hardness of 2, and 5 HP per inch of thickness. That's probably the closest you're going to get to the material of a corpse. For uncured flesh, you could maybe remove the hardness, but the HP should still be the same.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-06-26, 03:29 AM
Figure hp as you would for a zombie (averages, not rolling), no DR, typical object resistances.

Inyssius Tor
2008-06-26, 08:50 AM
Figure hp as you would for a zombie (averages, not rolling), no DR, typical object resistances.

Ah, that's clever. But I don't think it would work, and this is the reason why: when is a zombie destroyed? When you destroy the brain? When you mangle it enough to disrupt the complex flows of negative energy which keep it animate? When you remove the jaw, dismember the creature, and render the legs unusable? In the case of undead and constructs, "destroyed" basically only means "cannot purposefully harm you". This is a handy rubric, but it obviously can't apply to objects, and so the rationale of any solution which bases object HP on constructs or undead would not apply consistently or reasonably to many different cases.

I suspect that problems of this nature are insoluble by RAW alone. When is a door "dead"? Obviously, when its hit points are equal to or lesser than 0. But what does that entail? It could be just broken in half, or it could be reduced to splinters; you could make a case that a door which can't shut, hinder line of effect, or easily be held against intruders is "dead" even if it's still essentially intact--so would a paper door count as "destroyed" from the moment it's made?

Or would a paper door count as art, and so be "dead" when it's no longer pretty? Do you then need to hire an envoy from Mechanus to evaluate the objective beauty of your work in order to estimate its HP? Does bad art have less HP than good art? Metal eaten by a rust monster is "destroyed" and "worthless", and that implies that "destruction" is linked to objective value. How then do you determine objective value, and does it vary based on context (if so, what is the correlation)?

Since the term "destroyed" varies wildly in usage throughout the RAW, you're going to have to define the word yourself in the context of your situation. If you say "destroyed", in this case, means "cannot be resurrected with raise dead," I'd guess it's around 2d4 or 1d10 for a human. If your rubric involves resurrection, it'd probably be a hell of a lot harder (and probably impossible just by hacking at the corpse, anyway).

kamikasei
2008-06-26, 09:27 AM
Well, I never thought this would actually come up, but the group I run actually needs statistics on corpses. Please don't ask why. Since a dead body is an object, & objects have stats (HP, hardness, Break DC, etc.), I need to know if anyone's calculated or homebrewed numbers on dead bodies.

...are you building a barrier out of the dead? I believe there are rules for "zombie walls" in Dungeonscape that might cover you.

shadow_archmagi
2008-06-26, 09:52 AM
Ah, that's clever. But I don't think it would work, and this is the reason why: when is a zombie destroyed? When you destroy the brain? When you mangle it enough to disrupt the complex flows of negative energy which keep it animate? When you remove the jaw, dismember the creature, and render the legs unusable? In the case of undead and constructs, "destroyed" basically only means "cannot purposefully harm you". This is a handy rubric, but it obviously can't apply to objects, and so the rationale of any solution which bases object HP on constructs or undead would not apply consistently or reasonably to many different cases.

I suspect that problems of this nature are insoluble by RAW alone. When is a door "dead"? Obviously, when its hit points are equal to or lesser than 0. But what does that entail? It could be just broken in half, or it could be reduced to splinters; you could make a case that a door which can't shut, hinder line of effect, or easily be held against intruders is "dead" even if it's still essentially intact--so would a paper door count as "destroyed" from the moment it's made?

Or would a paper door count as art, and so be "dead" when it's no longer pretty? Do you then need to hire an envoy from Mechanus to evaluate the objective beauty of your work in order to estimate its HP? Does bad art have less HP than good art? Metal eaten by a rust monster is "destroyed" and "worthless", and that implies that "destruction" is linked to objective value. How then do you determine objective value, and does it vary based on context (if so, what is the correlation)?

Since the term "destroyed" varies wildly in usage throughout the RAW, you're going to have to define the word yourself in the context of your situation. If you say "destroyed", in this case, means "cannot be resurrected with raise dead," I'd guess it's around 2d4 or 1d10 for a human. If your rubric involves resurrection, it'd probably be a hell of a lot harder (and probably impossible just by hacking at the corpse, anyway).

And what if its a MULTIPURPOSE item? Supposing its a beautiful jet-plane which also acts as a seal between this world and the next?

Does it have HP for its Art, HP for its Transportation, HP for its combat, and HP for its sealyness? Do they STACK!?

If so, it might explain why the japanese try to make everything a work of art; it lasts longer that way.

Flickerdart
2008-06-26, 10:11 AM
And what if the art goes out of style, or conversely is avant-garde? Would it get more HP or "level up" in being an artwork when the style is recognized, or gain negative levels as its style becomes obsolete?

I say we make class levels for objects. That plane would be a 2 Artwork/5 Transport/5 Combat/8 Seal, for example. So it gets, say, a d4 HD for Artwork, d6 for Transport, d8 for Seal and d10 for Combat, making it have, on average, 76(?) HP, plus some hardness. And appropriate ability scores, CHA 14 (Artwork 2), CON 26 (Seal 8), DEX 20 and STR 20 (Transport and Combat 5) and no WIS or INT scores because it's nonsentient.

Zeta Kai
2008-06-26, 10:39 AM
Alright, well maybe it will help to narrow the discussion & arrive at a conclusive answer if I just go ahead & tell you guys why I need to know. Be warned, this isn't pretty...

My group is playing a team of bounty hunters, & they're current mission is to track down Karguk the Blight. Karguk is basically the most morally reprehensible being imaginable, wanted for severally bounties in multiple domains for myriad crimes. He's commited almost every possible heinous crime, in many depraved combinations. Here's a list of the crimes he is wanted in connection with, as far as the players know:

2,230 counts of theft/destruction of property
1,672 counts of assault
559 counts of murder
85 counts of torture
37 counts of rape
14 counts of cannibalism
3 counts of kidnapping
1 count of vivisection

He's also rumored to have destroyed 4 towns, impaled several living victims, & eaten at least 1 baby. He's also damn-near indestructible, with regenerative capabilities that compare favorably to the Tarrasque (of which he's essentially a non-dormant, sentient version). All of this because he's been possessed by a dying god of destruction, although he was a bad egg even before all that.

Wait, it get's better. Karguk has recently acquired several wands of enlarge person, which he's been using to increase the destructive power of campaign of madness. He is now said to be using the corpses of his victims as great clubs to batter anyone who gets in his way.

That's why I need the stats on a Medium-sized, Humanoid dead body.

hamishspence
2008-06-26, 10:56 AM
4th ed answer for improvised big club, would be: treat as 2 handed improvised weapon.

3rd ed answer should be pretty similar, for damage dealt by bad guy.

If you want sundering purposes, do comparison: body is about a ft thick, maybe 2 ft when enlarged, hardness somewhere between bone and nothing, hit points- less than bone of same thickness (flesh walls in Dungeonscape?)

Drider
2008-06-26, 10:58 AM
Alright, well maybe it will help to narrow the discussion & arrive at a conclusive answer if I just go ahead & tell you guys why I need to know. Be warned, this isn't pretty...

My group is playing a team of bounty hunters, & they're current mission is to track down Karguk the Blight. Karguk is basically the most morally reprehensible being imaginable, wanted for severally bounties in multiple domains for myriad crimes. He's commited almost every possible heinous crime, in many depraved combinations. Here's a list of the crimes he is wanted in connection with, as far as the players know:

2,230 counts of theft/destruction of property
1,672 counts of assault
559 counts of murder
85 counts of torture
37 counts of rape
14 counts of cannibalism
3 counts of kidnapping
1 count of vivisection

He's also rumored to have destroyed 4 towns, impaled several living victims, & eaten at least 1 baby. He's also damn-near indestructible, with regenerative capabilities that compare favorably to the Tarrasque (of which he's essentially a non-dormant, sentient version). All of this because he's been possessed by a dying god of destruction, although he was a bad egg even before all that.

Wait, it get's better. Karguk has recently acquired several wands of enlarge person, which he's been using to increase the destructive power of campaign of madness. He is now said to be using the corpses of his victims as great clubs to batter anyone who gets in his way.

That's why I need the stats on a Medium-sized, Humanoid dead body.

I don't know how you'd make the stats, I like the zombie idea, But what you said in the spoiler is the greatest thing i've seen all day.

xPANCAKEx
2008-06-26, 12:23 PM
i think if you want to keep it fairly realistic that bludgeoning and piercing weapons do MUCH less damage - cutting a body up (slashing) is far easier than smushing (bludgeoing) it or poking (piercing) it to pieces

Roderick_BR
2008-06-26, 04:14 PM
Maybe you could compare it to zombies, since they use rules based on the character's race and size, ignoring things like class levels.

The HP is to see how much the corpse holds up before "breaking" like an object?

Lochar
2008-06-26, 04:21 PM
Alright, well maybe it will help to narrow the discussion & arrive at a conclusive answer if I just go ahead & tell you guys why I need to know. Be warned, this isn't pretty...

My group is playing a team of bounty hunters, & they're current mission is to track down Karguk the Blight. Karguk is basically the most morally reprehensible being imaginable, wanted for severally bounties in multiple domains for myriad crimes. He's commited almost every possible heinous crime, in many depraved combinations. Here's a list of the crimes he is wanted in connection with, as far as the players know:

2,230 counts of theft/destruction of property
1,672 counts of assault
559 counts of murder
85 counts of torture
37 counts of rape
14 counts of cannibalism
3 counts of kidnapping
1 count of vivisection

He's also rumored to have destroyed 4 towns, impaled several living victims, & eaten at least 1 baby. He's also damn-near indestructible, with regenerative capabilities that compare favorably to the Tarrasque (of which he's essentially a non-dormant, sentient version). All of this because he's been possessed by a dying god of destruction, although he was a bad egg even before all that.

Wait, it get's better. Karguk has recently acquired several wands of enlarge person, which he's been using to increase the destructive power of campaign of madness. He is now said to be using the corpses of his victims as great clubs to batter anyone who gets in his way.

That's why I need the stats on a Medium-sized, Humanoid dead body.

You know, when you go all out, you go all out.

xPANCAKEx
2008-06-26, 05:32 PM
i wonder if being hit with a corpse would count as some sort of bullrush?

averagejoe
2008-06-26, 05:39 PM
Alright, well maybe it will help to narrow the discussion & arrive at a conclusive answer if I just go ahead & tell you guys why I need to know. Be warned, this isn't pretty...

My group is playing a team of bounty hunters, & they're current mission is to track down Karguk the Blight. Karguk is basically the most morally reprehensible being imaginable, wanted for severally bounties in multiple domains for myriad crimes. He's commited almost every possible heinous crime, in many depraved combinations. Here's a list of the crimes he is wanted in connection with, as far as the players know:

2,230 counts of theft/destruction of property
1,672 counts of assault
559 counts of murder
85 counts of torture
37 counts of rape
14 counts of cannibalism
3 counts of kidnapping
1 count of vivisection

He's also rumored to have destroyed 4 towns, impaled several living victims, & eaten at least 1 baby. He's also damn-near indestructible, with regenerative capabilities that compare favorably to the Tarrasque (of which he's essentially a non-dormant, sentient version). All of this because he's been possessed by a dying god of destruction, although he was a bad egg even before all that.

Wait, it get's better. Karguk has recently acquired several wands of enlarge person, which he's been using to increase the destructive power of campaign of madness. He is now said to be using the corpses of his victims as great clubs to batter anyone who gets in his way.

That's why I need the stats on a Medium-sized, Humanoid dead body.

Neat. And thank you for sharing.

shadow_archmagi
2008-06-26, 07:05 PM
Must... make... epic level... dishpan!

Zeta Kai
2008-06-26, 11:27 PM
You know, when you go all out, you go all out.

Well, as you might have guessed from my projects, I rarely do anything only halfway. :smallbiggrin: