If I take the Disintegrate Perk for shock spells, will the gear and gold carried by an NPC affected by it still be there to collect, or is it gone?

Anyone?

Nope, all their gear remains intact. Weapons, armor, books, bones, etc. everything is still there even if you disintegrate them.

Thanks!

You're welcome!

It's quite entertaining watching enemies disintegrate, especially big ones like mammoths and dragons.

It's also useless and a waste of a perk point. Pretty silly when you ash a dragon into a teeny tiny little pile, too. The only useful end-branch elemental perk is ice, and that's debatable since they all only work at the end of the fight which means you were already winning and this perk wont help you any.

I don't find disintegrate useless. I've disintegrated lots of monsters when they still had a lot of health left, thereby shortening the fight and lessening the danger.

Disintegrate only happens if they're near the end of life. Generally the spell would have killed the enemy anyways. It's like melee deathblows, just less cool.

Mmm that hasn't been my experience. I've disintegrated things that still had as much as 1/4 health, including ancient dragons and draugr death overlords...