Cannot find a strait-forward answer on this anywhere. Approximately how many Hit Points and or hardness does a dead body have to take/go through to sustain a 'broken/destroyed' status. Assuming that a body is treated as an object for the purposes of mundane effects.
Making a character to remove bodies via non-magical immolation/dissolving(oil/kerros oil/alchemist fire/acid/etc.)
At this point I'm almost trying to figure out how to squish the Ooze Crafting feat into my ninja build for this as a simpler method.
(Yes I am aware of "Cleaner" archetypes, but they still don't address the how of how they do it.)
Well, a dead body is basically a destroyed living creature. Most destroyed items are still present, they just don't function any more.
To actually dissolve entirely a body you'll need more acid (in mass) than the body itself. This isn't doable financially in PF. To cremate a body you'll need a higher temperature than alchemists fire provides (much greater than keros oil). A shroud of disintegration is expensive but probably less so than that quantity of acid.
Feeding a body to something living might work better - pigs are a classic, but something like a tunnel creeper could probably do it.
I guess a scroll of Disintegrate is 1,650gp (or 825gp if you craft it). That'll definitely do the trick.
Hit point of corpse = HP of the base creature without class levels.
i.e. human, 1d8; ettin, 10d8+20; ogre 4d8+12; etc.
To simplify things I'd use hardness for leather or hide, but you might want to reduce it to hardness 1:
Leather or hide: Hardness 2, 5hp/in. of thickness (in the case you just want to cut through a limb or something...)
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A well-aimed ax chop to the neck will destroy a human corpse, but you get a head and a headless body, you don't reduce it to ashes and dust.
To remove all traces of the body you need a lime pit (a Mafia classic), a large, very hot of fire, a large quantity of acid, have some creature eat it (slimes, hyenas, pigs, you need something that breaks and eats the bones), and so on. It isn't easy.
The chief problem is that a body isn't an object with a purpose, so the broken/destroyed conditions don't do anything. You can't just keep hitting something and expect it to disappear.
Bone paste could work, but the average human is 22 square feet of surface, so you may want to mash them into a sack to reduce surface area; 160lb person could be reduced to a sphere with a 9square foot surface area... It's 75 gold, and dissolves 1 square foot per application.
You could also get a wand of decompose corpse and then just worry about the bones. Which would happen even if you cremated remains, so wand, portable cremulator and you're ready to go.
You could also use the body as raw materials for cooking, fail the roll and destroy half the materials. I think failing to craft something is the only nonmagical way to cause something to cease to exist. A mixture of the decompose wand and failing to craft bone breastplates is probably your best bet.
Or probably laying out the absurd options to your DM and saying "I want a less silly version of this, any ideas?"
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Or probably laying out the absurd options to your DM and saying "I want a less silly version of this, any ideas?"
The problem is that the difficulty of completely dispose of a body is something very real. Probably it is possible to find something using the Internet, but it is possible that the research will trigger some law enforcement warning programs too.
If what the OP wants to do is remove evidence, teleport object can be useful (send it very far away, possibly into a volcano or bog. If the goal is to stop resurrection, disintegrate and gust of wind, or disintegrate and mixing the dust with lime.
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I just had a thought, is there a cantrip that has a bone as a material component? That would do it when combined with Decompose Corpse.
It'd take ~20 minutes for the average Human(oid), but it's completely destroy the bones.
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There's a few bone material components, but I didn't see any as cantrips. Most of them are specific bones, higher level, not really solid options.
There is the pharasma evangelist ability "decomposition" but that comes around 11th level even if you go the evangelist prc route, which is a bit late.
An earth elemental familiar could bury bodies for you, assuming your DM interprets earth glide as something that permits the elemental to bring items with it.
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There's a few bone material components, but I didn't see any as cantrips. Most of them are specific bones, higher level, not really solid options.
Yeah I couldn't think of any cantrips, but I thought I'd ask.
Higher level spells don't really work for this unless you have ~200 castings to spare or they use up multiple bones in one casting.
Solution: “Make wands”
:V
Bag of Devouring. Decompse Corpse wand is a cheap place to start, then just worry about the bones.
Solution: “Make wands”
:V
Oh! Oh, oh, oh!
Even better: make a temple to Pharasma!
"What... are you doing?"
"... the lady's work, duh. What, you got a problem with me obeyin' Pharasma? Ya want that I should talk wit' 'er an' 'splain egg-zactly why I'm late buildin' up ye ol' temple o' the Lady, buddy?!"
"... n-no. No, that... that's fine. As you were, citizen."
Might require nonchalant thuggery, though.
So, you know, bluff you're way through it.
Circumstances: Bluff Modifier
The target wants to believe you: +5
The lie is believable: +0
The lie is unlikely: –5
The lie is far-fetched: –10
The lie is impossible: –20
Embiggen'd Cha, Max ranks, nonchalant thuggery, deceitful, {optionally: careful speaker, lifeless gaze, noble imposter}, skill focus, and, of course, glibness. (Innocence if you're lower level.)
(Also intoxicating flattery, but, you know, that's not the scenario presented below.)
"Did... did you just kill that man? And are you hiding the bodies by decomposing them into bone and trying to turn the remaining bones into wands and/or a temple of Pharasma like some sort of Lovecraftian and/or futuristic concept?"
"Uh... no, no I didn't, and, um you killed them with a chicken, Greg."
Months later I remember the perfect spell for this."Allfood" from the hunter/ranger spell list.
That should get rid of the bones easily enough. Bones are about 15% of a average healthy male's body weight, and 10% of an average healthy female's body weight. So by the time your hunter can cast the spell, he's already got a 140lb dude's bones worth of all food spell.
The dry weight of the skeleton is only about 10lbs, so if you can really desiccate them, you could eat a bunch of skeletons with one casting! The spell even lets you cast it on a pile of similar objects, so no worries about keeping the body in one piece during the drying process.
I like to imagine the spell just turning a skeleton into a skeleton shaped jello, since bones were how people used to make gelatin. Just pick up a femur and it turns into a giant, wriggly gummy.
Months later I remember the perfect spell for this."Allfood" from the hunter/ranger spell list.
That should get rid of the bones easily enough. Bones are about 15% of a average healthy male's body weight, and 10% of an average healthy female's body weight. So by the time your hunter can cast the spell, he's already got a 140lb dude's bones worth of all food spell.
The dry weight of the skeleton is only about 10lbs, so if you can really desiccate them, you could eat a bunch of skeletons with one casting! The spell even lets you cast it on a pile of similar objects, so no worries about keeping the body in one piece during the drying process.
This isn't old enough to call a necro, so instead we'll just add our two copper pieces: Ghouls.