Cleric and ¿symbols?

[vyruxx]

pag 118 : Because you’re a cleric, you can usually hold a divine focus (such as a
religious symbol) for spells requiring material components
instead of needing to use a spell component pouch.

Can a cleric use a shield as a sacred symbol?

[Claxon]

As far as I'm aware, there is not an equivalent to the PF1 Reliquart Shield, which did exactly this.

[Wheldrake]

It doesn't seem a stretch at all to have your god's holy symbol engraved on your shield. Ask your DM, but I would say you pay the extra price for the symbol and call it a day.

I would still want to have an extra holy symbol in my belt pouch, for when that shield gets broken. Which it will.

[Fallyna]

vyruxx wrote:

Can a cleric use a shield as a sacred symbol?

If they take the Emblazon Armament feat (p122, level 2 feat), they can use their shield as a religious symbol and divine focus, as well as adding 1 to the shield's hardness.

[Wheldrake]

Oooh, I didn't see that there was already a feat for that. 2nd level, though, so you'll have to wait for it.

[vyruxx]

thank you

[Claxon]

I didn't realize either. I was looking for equipment, not a feat.

[Zapp]

It feels very natural to allow your Cleric player to simply paint (or have painted) his god's holy symbol on his shield or weapon.

Paizo never directly says this can't happen. But when you look at the rules as a whole you realize it can't be allowed, since it would short-circuit the feat.

It would be better if Paizo said it outright - a weapon or shield cannot function as a holy symbol unless you spend a feat slot to pay for it.

[The Raven Black]

Without the feat, you use the Ask your GM solution. With it, you are even more likely to have your GM say yes AND you get an additional benefit.

[Zapp]

The Raven Black wrote:

Without the feat, you use the Ask your GM solution. With it, you are even more likely to have your GM say yes AND you get an additional benefit.

I guess you don't have a problem with minmaxing players switching from minmaxing their builds (in PF1) to now minmaxing the GM instead.

But I do.

I find that the high level of detail and control that the PÅF2 designers went for only makes sense if you actually follow the rules.

If you can just ask the GM to be allowed to do something that another player thought you needed a feat to do, that is imho a massive and unfair advantage, and I am far better off playing another less prescriptive game. It could be a "holy shield" or it could be about jumping around corners or climbing ledges or whatever.

It's not that I'm against a permissive carefree game where the GM is encouraged to not say no, but instead say "yes but".

If we instead play a OSR game with few rules, for instance, that's completely alright. But there it's obvious we need to trust our GMs judgement, and there are no feats we can take for no benefit. There's no build element the GM can accidentally or intentionally render useless. We won't have to watch the other player getting the benefit without having to pay the cost.

tl;dr: the more options and limitations and restrictions a game offers the more you need to actually enforce them and not rely on GM judgement. Pathfinder 2 is perhaps the most detailed and restriction-based game I've played in recent years, so the idea that the GM should be able to just "say yes" is utterly incompatible in my eyes.

This is just a comment on your reply.

On topic, it would definitely improve the game if Paizo stated it outright - a weapon or shield cannot function as a holy symbol unless you spend a feat slot to pay for it. That way, a GM would at least know what rule he overruled.

As is, a GM can say yes without even realizing he just rendered a feat worthless. This is a big criticism against the PF2 rules philosophy. You can't say "yes but " without likely nixing a feat. Not all GMs know the whole game by heart and all its 2000+ feats.

[SuperBidi]

I disagree with the fact that Emblazon Armament implies that you can't use a weapon/shield as a holy symbol.
What Emblazon Armament does, on top of extra damage/hardness, is to allow you to take any weapon/shield and make a holy symbol out of it in 10 minutes. Without it, for an item to be a holy symbol it needs to be especially engraved, which can't be done while adventuring because your previous shield is broken or because you found a new awesome sword.

I don't see anything in the rules stating that a shield/weapon can't be used as a holy symbol. So, it's up to the GM, but a GM forbidding it is in my opinion being too restrictive for no valid reason.

[Zapp]

SuperBidi wrote:

I don't see anything in the rules stating that a shield/weapon can't be used as a holy symbol. So, it's up to the GM, but a GM forbidding it is in my opinion being too restrictive for no valid reason.

That line of reasoning "if it doesn't say it outright I'm just going to go ahead and assume I can do it" isn't valid for a rules body such as PF2.

In this case, the second you introduce reliquary shields (or swords, etc) the feat becomes practically worthless and everybody will retrain out of it as soon as the cost for engravement becomes trivial.

I can't prevent you from going there, but I CAN strongly recommend against it, since it is very likely the RAI that the feat is needed or you have to keep one hand free.

[SuperBidi]

Zapp wrote:

That line of reasoning "if it doesn't say it outright I'm just going to go ahead and assume I can do it" isn't valid for a rules body such as PF2.

Strong disagree. It's a roleplaying game, not a board game. You can't describe everything in a roleplaying game. As such, if it's doesn't say it outright, it's up to the GM.

Zapp wrote:

In this case, the second you introduce reliquary shields (or swords, etc) the feat becomes practically worthless and everybody will retrain out of it as soon as the cost for engravement becomes trivial.

Once again, I disagree. This feat as a clear use (increasing damage and hardness). It is for me the main use of the feat. And certainly the reason why we disagree, as we don't see this feat's benefits the same way.

[Aw3som3-117]

Honestly, I don't see how the feat is relevant. The existence of a feat shouldn't make something able or not able to be done. Let's just look at the rules themselves. Also, keep in mind there's the hardness bonus.

Anyway, it sounds like the GM could allow it, as there aren't actually any rules on what can and can't be a divine focus, just that a religious symbol may qualify.

Divine Spellcasting wrote:

Because you're a cleric, you can usually hold a divine focus (such as a religious symbol) for spells requiring material components instead of needing to use a material component pouch.

That being said, I'd be careful allowing that for Clerics without something similar being allowed for Wizards, Druids, etc. There's nothing in the base rules to indicate that any random item can double as a divine focus. In fact, it doesn't even say that religious symbols will always work. It just says that clerics can "usually" hold a focus "such as" a religious symbol instead of a material component pouch. Which, by the way, isn't a generic term. It's an actual item that requires a hand to hold, as seen here: https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=41

I understand that in other versions this was allowed, but when it was, it was quite explicitly allowed. In PF2 the text under divine spellcasting is practically identical to that of a druid's primal spellcasting. There's nothing to indicate that they should get an advantage over other classes in terms of how many hands they need for material components. It's just giving you another option to use as a focus besides a component pouch, and it just so happens to give one specific example with appropriate flavor to work as a divine focus.

Again, if your GM allows it, then technically your divine focus could be anything. It doesn't even have to have a symbol of your deity on it, nor does having a symbol of your deity on something automatically make it a divine focus.