Body In the Bag of Holding

[Darth Grall]

So one of my players, a Samurai, placed a fallen companion(a ninja NPC) into a bag of holding after being slain by a Totenmaske.

Are there any rules for the rate of decay of a body? I know there's the spell Gentle Repose, which completely deters decay for it's duration... But that hasn't been cast since he's a Samurai.

So are there any rules for how quickly a body decays? I'd say a bag of holding's air tight-ish & at least shouldn't have bugs and so on... But otherwise it's not protected in any way shape or form from decay.

[SkyHaussmann]

There are a few interesting things going on here. First of all, bodies start decaying pretty much the moment they die, but it gets exponentially faster as micro-organisms grow and consume the flesh until they die off from lack of food. Given that gentle repose postpones days of decay, and refers to raise dead, which can raise someone who has been dead for up to day/level, you'd think that raise dead's magic caps out at about 3 weeks of decay, for a 20th level caster, that being said, if they leave the bag closed for the whole time he's in there, after a while all the oxygen will be consumed and only the anaerobic micro-organism will keep decomposing the body, and they work much more slowly.
If it is the smallest bag of holding i'd say maybe count the first 2 or 3 days normally, and then count further days as 1/2 days or something like that, to model the body decaying more slowly and still being raiseable for longer.

[Krodjin]

Back to the lab CSI SkyHaussman. Nick needs help lifting some prints. Sarah said Grissom told her he concurs with your theory.

Brass and I are gonna go get some donuts. Want any?

[Barry Armstrong]

There are no RAW, but I would rule that in a bag of holding, a body would decay at half rate and not decay at all if Gentle Repose has been cast.

[SkyHaussmann]

Hah, Krodjin, if only Pathfinder had a CSI guild or some such.
Mixing science knowledge with rpg rules is always a delight, though admittedly my biology is not as good as chem and physics. These hand-waving arguments should be good enough for a fix for this kind of scenario, so i didnt bother going and looking up hard data for decomposition rates.

[Darth Grall]

Thanks for your help guys, that's more or less what I was looking for. ^.^

[LazarX]

Bodies decay at the normal rate. There's nothing special about a bag of holding save lack of renewable air. But that's not a factor in the early days of decay where it actually counts as far as the raise dead spell limit goes.

[Barry Armstrong]

I try not to mix real world science with Pathfinder. That's why I suggested generic rules that are easy to remember.

If I wanted real world science, I'd play Bill Nye the Science Guy. Not a fantasy world with mythical creatures and magic.

I don't even use encumbrance tables unless the guy with 11 strength tells me he's going to carry the chest with 30,000 copper pieces in it.

[Lakesidefantasy]

"Body In the Bag of Holding"

Isn't that an Agatha Christie title?

[Dust Raven]

My group always used a portable hole to store dead bodies in. I guess it was more of a portable mass grave.

[blackbloodtroll]

There is the Corpse-Ferrying Bag for just this sort of situation.