Decompose

[Lyger]

As much as I like this spell, I dread it actually being used because I'm not a forensic anthropologist and have very little idea of how long it takes for things to decompose, outside of the fact that in "warm, moist conditions" it can take about three weeks for a body to be reduced to a skeleton, but that if it's very cold, or very dry or something else is going on, it can take decades, if it happens at all. And when it comes to fabrics and tanned hides, I have no clue at all.

So it seems to me that it's easier on both players and GMs to define some states of decay, and have the spell move all items in the area of effect through these states at the same time. Each state of decay should have a brief description of what effect is has on the game: "During the Breakdown phase, there is a -3 modifier to recognize a body. Books and clothing are unusable, since they crumble into small pieces if someone attempts to pick them up," or whatever. Yeah, it's unrealistic to assume that things all decay at the same rate, but hey, it's magic, and it's a lot easier than getting caught up in how long different items should take, and what the local conditions should do to that.

[Tiger's Heart]

Defining the stages for different types of things could be tricky. I used this for a reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decomposition and came up with 4 after the initial "dead" result.

Stage 1: Fresh (yes it's dead)
Stage 2: Putrefaction (bloated and stinky)
Stage 3: Black Putrefaction (ruptures and darkens)
Stage 4: Dessication (drying out)
Stage 5: Dry Decay (skeletonisation)

These will work for all animals and most plants. For hides and other manufactured (dry) items the process will usually skip stage 2 and possibly stage 3. Leather tents to go mouldy when left wet, stinky then dries and goes brittle before breaking down.

As you've said the environment will also have an impact on the break-down process, but as this is a spell it would be reasonable to assume that it can circumvent these conditions by it's magical nature. i.e. In a frozen mountainous area it would still be possible to cause something to decay with the same time it would take in the lowlands.

I would imagine that any item past stage 1 becomes unusable and unpleasant.

I don't know how this could be set into a table for easy use - or under what conditions it could (or would) be used in game.

As a really gross idea - would it possible to cast it on a living organism... bypass stage 1 and then ...

Probably not a nice thing to do

Tiger's Heart

[DKH]

Sadly it has to be cast on a non-living organism, according to the beta rules.

Which makes me wonder: can anyone think of a situation where decompose would be really useful? It's one of those situational utility spells that just makes me think, "when is this actually going to make a difference?"

[Tiger's Heart]

I can think of some situations, but none are really nice.

Destroying important documents before they fall in to the wrong hands.
An enemy cannot fight if they are starving - rotten food feeds no-one (except apparently Darkspawn don't eat...)
IIRC Napoleon Lost in Russia because his troops froze due to their buttons falling off and their pants falling down...

Disguising a body - how long it has been dead and how it died. "couldn't have been us it's been dead for days..."


Preparing a trap.

Oh and probably best of all - To make Booze!!

On the whole though, I don't see it being used that often.

Tiger's Heart

[Lyger]

It's one of those situational utility spells that just makes me think, "when is this actually going to make a difference?"

Three words: "What wooden door?" Even if you presume that most large doors are not a single broad plank of wood, rotting one section to dust can be a really effective lockpick. There are actually a lot of once-living organic materials used in construction that this spell would wreak havoc on. This spell could be used to collapse mineshafts (or homes, for that matter) by rotting out a crucial timber support.

[caul]

[quote="Lyger]Three words: "What wooden door?"[/quote]

This...makes for great dramatic moments.

[Koeran]

"Burn it, burn it, burn it, burn it..."

I'm just saying. When you have the option of casting a spell that could potentially KILL you (Decompose has requirements, and is thus potentially subject to the Magical Misshaps Effects), or to light a fire through mundane means, which are you going to choose?

Especially when the spell takes a minute to cast anyway.

I honestly take serious issue with several of the spells presented in the Set 2 playtest. As several of them are Fantasy Generic in concept and don't fit with the severe nature of magic in the DA setting.

Decompose happens to be one of those spells.

[Lyger]

The point isn't that Decompose is always the best way to get through a door - but sometimes it is. Fire doesn't just spring up and then go away when you want it to, and smoke and the smell can alert people a good distance away that something is wrong. And making fire quickly and reliably is difficult at a medieval level of technology. Many domestic fires were never allowed to go out, for just that reason.

But that's beside the point. The idea is that Decompose has other uses than just making bodies go away, since any once-living organic material may be decomposed. That opens up a whole host of creative uses for the spell.

[Baltae]

I can think of tons of cool uses for this spell:

Weaken the hull of a ship to cause it to sink in rough water;
Weaken bridge supports to cover your retreat/set a trap;
Use it on a corpse to hide its identity;
Use it on a wooden wall to create an alternate/hidden entrance.

I think this spell seems pretty useful.

[Koeran]

I'm not disputing that the spell has uses. And I'm certainly not disputing that clever character/players could come up with some seriously cool uses of the spell.

What I'm saying is, in a setting where Magic is so dangerous, and so heavily controlled, how did such a mundane spell ever get created? Especially considering that despite the various creative ways the spell could be used, most of them could probably be replicated through mundane means which have no risk of demonic possession/abominations.

[Loswaith]

Reguardless of the factor of whether magic is now heavily controled it wasnt always the case. There are also apostates about as well, that care little for the leash of the circle.

Magic itself is not hugely dangerous, it has risks to it, though but not enough to stop everyone using it. To date the highest casting number is only 14 (reasonably easy to achieve by even a starting mage).

The decompose spell while it can do some stuff one could do maundanely it can also do stuff more quickly (something can be decayed 60 days in one minute). If you take the mechanics as well it has a CN of 11 giving most mages with a magic of 3, an 83.8% chance of success.

[Hellebore]

Korean isn't disagreeing with that. He's asking is it really worth the added convenience of being able to decompose something quickly if it also has a chance to kill you?

If decompose wasn't a pre requisite spell it wouldn't be as a big an issue (I certainly wouldn't care that some random mage came up with it as a prank to make the female mages robes fall off... ), although Korean doesn't like it in general.

But something so basic really shouldn't be putting a mage in danger of abominating.

It's not a convenience if it's dangerous. Flame Burst can start fires without any chance of abominating.

Hellebore

[Koeran]

Reguardless of the factor of whether magic is now heavily controled it wasnt always the case. There are also apostates about as well, that care little for the leash of the circle.

It's not just the leash of the Cirlce. There's a whole lot of fearmongering surrounding magic. Granted a lot of it is currently being done by the Circle, but I'm sure they're not alone. And they're likely not the first either.

Even if an Apostate doesn't care about the Cirlce and their restrictions, they're still going to be careful. Well, assuming they have a sense of self preservation.

The decompose spell while it can do some stuff one could do maundanely it can also do stuff more quickly (something can be decayed 60 days in one minute). If you take the mechanics as well it has a CN of 11 giving most mages with a magic of 3, an 83.8% chance of success.

Sure, the spell has a TN of 11. But it's a completed spell. What about when it was being researched/created? Surely that process would've involved all kinds of experimentation and risks, likely involving TNs of higher than 11. The same would be true for all spells.

I just can't see a Mage/Mages going through all that effort and risk for a spell that effectively just emulates mundane options.

[Loswaith]

Keep in mind too that alot of magic stemed from the tevinter imperium (alot of the fear stemed from their use of magic too). Alot of the information that is given was that the tevinter didnt care as muich about the consequences of magic so much as the power that could be gained from using it.

While the research to such spells would have risks (assuming the knowlege was resarched initially and not gained from demons or spirits), I can see the spell itself assisting in many ways to avoid other possibly more risky situations. Just about every other spell as well.

Tecnnically there is no mundane way to make something naturally decay, other than time. Sure there are other ways of disposing of various matter but they can leave noticable traces as well.

It's not like Decompose is spell that polishes the silverware.

[Koeran]

Keep in mind too that alot of magic stemed from the tevinter imperium (alot of the fear stemed from their use of magic too). Alot of the information that is given was that the tevinter didnt care as muich about the consequences of magic so much as the power that could be gained from using it.

That's true. I guess it then comes back too how much information on magic was left behind when the Tevinter Imperium collapsed/withdrew. Admittedly I'm not hugely familiar with the Tevinter Imperium's background, as I haven't finished DA:O, and I got sick of having to read a new codex entry every 5 mins, so stopped reading most of them after the first few hours of gameplay.

But I can't really see them letting a lot of information get out. And if they did, it would be for the less powerful spells. So maybe having more spells like Decompose is relevant.

Though I've made it clear already that I don't like that idea. My basic position is; "Get your generic fantasy out of my Dragon Age."

I'm sick of high magic settings where Mages end up being the only relevant class because you can emulate anyone else through your spell selection. Which unfortunately is the direction the game seems to be heading in. Granted so far there aren't any spells to emulate a Rogues function. At least not yet anyway, we'll have to wait and see what pops up in later sets.

I'm even more appalled at the inclusion of a "Slime" creature in the Set 2 playtest. As far I know, there is no evidence in the source material for such a creature. But I'm digressing from the topic...

In my opinion Mages are the settings WMDs, which the Chantry is desperate to maintain control of (understandably). I can't really see them teaching them spells that don't relate to combat. Which granted leaves Mages with a good deal of downtime. Given that they're understandably forbidden from learning Martial Combat (as the Templars would have an even harder time maintaining control), that leaves them to pursue scholarly things instead. Granted, nothing like this is expressly said anywhere that I'm aware of, but I think it's a perfectly valid interpretation of the situation in the setting.

While the research to such spells would have risks (assuming the knowlege was resarched initially and not gained from demons or spirits), I can see the spell itself assisting in many ways to avoid other possibly more risky situations. Just about every other spell as well.

Tecnnically there is no mundane way to make something naturally decay, other than time. Sure there are other ways of disposing of various matter but they can leave noticable traces as well.

It's not like Decompose is spell that polishes the silverware.

Once again, I'm not disputing that Decompose, or the other spells I take issue with (Dream Sending, Glyph of Preservation, Glyph of Sealing, Levitate, Memory, Shape Earth, Shelter, Spring, Weather Weaving and Wind Weaving) have uses. Or indeed could even be ideal in certain circumstances.

I'm saying, why were they researched in the first place? And even if they were researched (presumably by the Tevinter Imperium, as you pointed out), how/why are Mages still learning them?

After all, if you expand the spell progression from Set 1 and the Set 2 playtest, you end up with a maximum of 19 spells. That's assuming you take 3 Spell School Talents (of course we're yet to see exactly how those talents will expand in later sets). 19 Spells isn't many, so why would a Mage waste their time with Decompose?

[Loswaith]

I guess thats the big difference I cant honestly see a reason not to take Decompose.. Way to many uses.

Then I dont like magic thats just about combat either (thats fine for a computer game, most of the time), as it makes mages a single dimentional character.

[Koeran]

Well, honestly I don't like magic that's all about combat either. But for my understanding of the setting I think that most of the magic in Dragon Age should be combat orientated. Particularly for Circle Mages.

As far as non-combat spells go, I don't think they should potentially cause Magical Mishaps, unless they offer an especially powerful or otherwise hard/impossible to replicate effect. I don't think Decompose fits that situation, even if the closest way to truly replicate it's effect is to put the object in question into a compost heap. If it didn't have prerequisites, then I probably wouldn't be as fussed. At least now that you've shown that non-combat spells are probably of non-circle origins.

___

Outside of my particular gripes with the concept of the spell though, I've noticed another issue; "any single piece of non-living organic material" is awfully vague.

So, you could decompose the whole trunk of a dead tree. But only one of the planks in a wooden door? Or if you can decompose a whole door, then can you decompose the whole outer hull of a ship? Or even the whole ship?

[Zapp]

Here's my version of Decompose.

Decompose: Non-living organic target decomposes one step (body > zombie > skeleton > dust). Smaller objects disintegrate straight away (such as a scroll of paper). One minute casting time. Intelligent undead get a Willpower (Self-Discipline) vs. Spellpower test to resist.

I find the original spell to be poorly thought out, almost at a naïve level of design.
1) Counting seconds is definitely not gaming-friendly. Either use rounds, minutes, hours or "until end of encounter". Or as I did, give the spell an instantaneous (but limited) duration.
2) Having "decomposes one day" is a bad effect to have - it is incredibly ill defined, and does not tie into existing game parameters in any way.
3) Not being able to stop the decomposition makes the spell useless for skeleton-loving necromancers.
4) Not defining "non-living organic material" opens it up to insta-killing boss-level undead.
5) The spell description fails to explain what the spell is for. By using perhaps the most likely target as an example (a corpse), the spell usage is much clearer to the newbie gamer.

All in all, the spell reads as if it came straight out of a first generation 1980's rpg. I'm all for nostalgia, but not that kind of nostalgia...

Note I'm not against "miscellaneous" spells with no clear combat utility. If the PCs manage to capture a vampire behind bars, I'd let them use this spell to auto-destruct the undead (since they can try over and over again in a non-combat situation). The "secret" in this case is they've already won the fight by capturing the undead, so destroying him with this spell is not "unbalanced".

Had this been a stringent ruleset like D&D the spell would still be unacceptably vague. But in a game like Dragon Age I find it isn't much of a problem if a GM needs to answer a question such as "how does my Vampire react to being reduced to a Skeleton?" on the fly...

[Elfie]

Except that Dragon Age doesn't really have undead. It has corpses and skeletons that are possessed by demons, but the demons themselves are "living" and are therefore not affected by the spell. This game has no "boss-level undead" to kill.

[Ghostdanser]

Except that Dragon Age doesn't really have undead. It has corpses and skeletons that are possessed by demons, but the demons themselves are "living" and are therefore not affected by the spell. This game has no "boss-level undead" to kill.

That is a very interesting point and something worth considering.

Is a Dragon Age Possessed Corpse "living" or not?

I would say that an argument could be made either way, but that a Possessed Corpse would qualify as dead (or undead) for game purposes. The demon may be possessing a body, but it is still a dead body and the fact that it is dead drives most demons insane. But why would a demon care if their host was dead or alive? Probably the fact that possessing a living body means the demon can be in the "real" world considerably longer, since with a beating heart the body won't decay...whereas possessing a dead body means the demon can't stay as long, since the body is decaying already, considerably shortening their stay in the "real" world.

For me, it currently stacks up to be a possessed dead body is still a dead body and subject to the Decompose spell, but the argument is far from clear cut and I could be wrong. That said if you have taken the time to capture (which begs the question of why, unless for research), say a Devouring Corpse...you'll probably find that an axe, lantern oil and a torch are better suited for the job.

To use one my favorite quotes:
Ash "It's a trick. Get an axe."