I was wondering if anyone had any experience of using a holy symbol as a weapon? Particularly wondering if there were any rules or guidelines in terms of damage that anyone knew about that I haven’t been able to find?
Most holy symbols would be a light improvised weapon at best I expect, but it's possible to build a holy symbol into something else.
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Even simpler than using the Create Reliquary Arms and Shield feat are the channel foci. Add +150gp to any weapon at the time of purchase and it’s a holy symbol. Consecrated Weapon.
Edit: You have to look in the main Channel Foci listing to see where it talks about them functioning as holy symbols. My Pharasma worshipper has a spiral carved into the bone pommel of his elven curved blade.
I was wondering if anyone had any experience of using a holy symbol as a weapon? Particularly wondering if there were any rules or guidelines in terms of damage that anyone knew about that I haven’t been able to find?
What sort of concept do you have in mind? Most holy symbol aren't very suitable as a weapon, though I suppose you could sling an iron one at somebody.
It’s very much the stereotypical Shikigami fighter build you see around a lot nowadays. The thought of beating enemies with a holy symbol, maybe swinging it around on a cord or chain like a flail really appealed to me, and I thought might help it have a bit of personality. However since the improvised weapon rules are fairly vague and scattered, I was hoping someone else might have a better idea of how such a thing would actually work.
How about swinging a holy book around on the end of a chain?
If that might be something that interests you, then check out the Living Grimoire Inquisitor...
"The living grimoire literally wields the sacred word of his deity, using his holy tome to smite the foes of his god with divine might."
My cleric of Cayden Caylean hit a monstrous centipede with his holy tankard when it snuck into camp during dinner. 1d4+2 nonlethal was enough to put it unconscious, but the tankard got bent and needed Mending.
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If you're looking to go the improvised weapon route, then Mudfoot is correct and picking a deity like Cayden Cailean that has something that works as a holy symbol that is big enough to use as a weapon is the direction I would go. Cayden also works well for an improvised weapon build, because, well, bar fights.
Among the Channel Foci, you could try: Bronze Gong (irori), Chains of Contrition, Instrument of the Divine (works with any deity, but thematic for Shelyn), or the Spiked Focus Ward. All of those are 2 lbs or heavier and should make for decent improvised weapons. The Spiked Focus Ward can literally be a board with a nail in it (just watch out, because humans will get a bigger board, with a bigger nail in it).
The Just scale is only 1 pound, so probably wouldn't count as more than 1d4 base, but by the time you stack Shikigami feats on it, you could probably be bashing people with the scales of justice fair negotiation at 2d6.
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My cleric of Cayden Caylean hit a monstrous centipede with his holy tankard when it snuck into camp during dinner. 1d4+2 nonlethal was enough to put it unconscious, but the tankard got bent and needed Mending.
Cayden has rules to fight with rapier and tankard. Divine Fighting Technique, see Cayden Cailean's Blade and Tankard. It works like a light mace.
The bent tankard was role playing and I applaud it but remember that Mending doesn't repair bent items; "This spell has no effect on objects that have been warped or otherwise transmuted, but it can still repair damage done to such items."Digression:
I was interested in restoring books damaged by time, humidity, and insects, and it is unclear if mending works on those:
- time change the chemical composition of the paper, making it brittle. That seems to be a form of natural transmutation. It is possible to reattach the broken pieces, it is doubtful that the book will be as solid as new;
- humidity doesn't do hit point damage at all, it smudges the page or makes them glue together;
- insects eat the pages. Maybe it is possible to repair them if the insect dejections and corpses are present, but that would transmute different materials into the original, so I doubt it will work.
In Iron Gods AP one of the afromentioned gods uses a spiked gauntlet as its holy symbol.
Irori's holy symbol is a blue hand. Step 1, take Improved Unarmed Strike; Step 2, get some blue paint...
I had fun with irori's symbol with one of my characters. He was a cleric of asmodeous and so he had a giant six fingered blue hand painted on his shield. You know, it had 1 thumb and 5 others, with the one in the middle being a big longer than the others....
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The bent tankard was role playing and I applaud it but remember that Mending doesn't repair bent items; "This spell has no effect on objects that have been [i] warped or otherwise transmuted[i], but it can still repair damage done to such items."
...I think you are wrong here. That's a reference to being subject to transmutation magic, like warp wood; Mending as a cantrip, can't undo higher level spells. Note that you still can repair an object damaged by spells that aren't transmutation; eg. a chair that got smashed by a battering blast spell.
Mending repair hit point damage, being bend don't cause any hit point damage. Being bent don't change an item hit points.
Humidity gluing pages together and smudging inks similarly doesn't cause a loss of hit point.
The paper becoming brittle can be a form of hit point damage. From my point of view, it reduces the item hardness, not its hit points. Until you handle it in the wrong way the piece of paper will conserve its form.
It all depends on how much narrative power you want to give to mending.
You can use it to restore a burnt piece of paper?
Being burned cause hit point damage, so repairing it should be well within the spell intended effects in Pathfinder (the 3.5 version limited it to repair breaks in an item, not other forms of damage). But burning documents is a staple in fiction that requires work on recovering the information. Beating that with a simple cantrip seems cheap.
Similarly, with how common are ancient libraries whose books have been damaged by age we find in printed adventures (and, at least for me, in those we write) the idea of recovering everything with the use of a cantrip and time change completely the value of that kind of scenery, from scenery to a gold resource.
Mending repair hit point damage, being bend don't cause any hit point damage. Being bent don't change an item hit points.
Humidity gluing pages together and smudging inks similarly doesn't cause a loss of hit point.
The paper becoming brittle can be a form of hit point damage. From my point of view, it reduces the item hardness, not its hit points. Until you handle it in the wrong way the piece of paper will conserve its form.
It all depends on how much narrative power you want to give to mending.
You can use it to restore a burnt piece of paper?
Being burned cause hit point damage, so repairing it should be well within the spell intended effects in Pathfinder (the 3.5 version limited it to repair breaks in an item, not other forms of damage). But burning documents is a staple in fiction that requires work on recovering the information. Beating that with a simple cantrip seems cheap.Similarly, with how common are ancient libraries whose books have been damaged by age we find in printed adventures (and, at least for me, in those we write) the idea of recovering everything with the use of a cantrip and time change completely the value of that kind of scenery, from scenery to a gold resource.
IMO mending makes functional repairs only. This is great for things like weapons and armor. Not so much for art pieces and books. So, it will fix torn and even eatten pages but it doesn't restore the writing on it. So the entire page or bits of the page are now blank. Same with a piece of art it will mend the canvas but the paint in the area is distorted and/or gone depending on the way the painting was damaged.
This way it keeps the mending spell useful, without it being a cure-all.
How much damage results in the Bent condition?
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