Ranger Divine Focus


Rules Questions


1: Does a ranger's divine focus have to be "a sprig of holly, or some other sacred plant", even if they worship a deity?

2: Is there any way to have their divine focus be less easily destroyed?

3: Can they make other items into their divine focus? If so, How?

4: Can they make use of the birthmark trait or is that just for characters that gain their divine spells as a cleric?

5: Does a twf ranger still need to have a free hand to cast their somatic spells? (Meaning they'd need to sheathe weapon, draw sprig of holly, cast spell, put away sprig of holly and redraw weapon for each "V,S,DF" spell cast?)


Starocious wrote:
1: Does a ranger's divine focus have to be "a sprig of holly, or some other sacred plant", even if they worship a deity?

The Divine Focus for a Druid/Ranger is as important as a Holy Symbol is to a Cleric or Paladin, but it doesn't *have* to be a "sprig of holly or some other sacred plant" if you don't want it to be, but it ought to be something equivalent in significance to a "Sprig of Holly or Sacred Plant". It can be anything "Nature-y" that satisfies Spiritual Significance, and this is something that you should discuss with your GM.

For example, something equally Spiritually Significant could be if you had a vial of water from the purest lake in the world... or you have a tuft of hair of a Dire Bear who sacrificed its own life to protect the forest... a moon crystal that heals plants while nearby, or something like this could also serve as a Divine Focus. If it has Spiritual Significance to your character, then it can serve as a Divine Focus. This is all subject to GM approval though.

Starocious wrote:
2: Is there any way to have their divine focus be less easily destroyed?

I'm not even sure why this is an issue, does your GM attack your DF on a regular basis? If so, that's odd.

Starocious wrote:
3: Can they make other items into their divine focus? If so, How?

I don't see any reason why not, but this is a PC + GM call.

Starocious wrote:
4: Can they make use of the birthmark trait or is that just for characters that gain their divine spells as a cleric?

Yes, you can use the Birthmark trait. Although it mentions gods and deities, this is fluff text. It would need to specifically enumerate a prerequisite something like "Requirement: Worship a Deity or be X Class" somewhere in the trait.

Starocious wrote:
5: Does a twf ranger still need to have a free hand to cast their somatic spells? (Meaning they'd need to sheathe weapon, draw sprig of holly, cast spell, put away sprig of holly and redraw weapon for each "V,S,DF" spell cast?)

You need a hand free to retrieve M and F components from your Spell Components Pouch, to manipulate your DF, and to make somatic movements. And you are allowed to manipulate your M/F/DF components with the same hand that you're making Somatic movements with.

Liberty's Edge

1) RAW? Yes. If your GM allows druid and rangers to follow a deity, he can allow you to use the holy symbol of the deity.
In Golarion you can be a druid follower of a deity.

2) Destroyed by what?
Area of Effect attacks matter only if you roll a 1 on the save and then the random selection pic the holy symbol.
Sunder will destroy a holy symbol with ease.

3) Feats, traits, magic items, a level as an oracle, other stuff. AoN Holy Symbol.

4) There is no limitation on what divine caster can use it.

5) Yes. Note that it was never specifically explained how hard is to manipulate the components and the foci. Most GM allows you to use the same hand to manipulate the foci and do the somatic gestures.
And you can keel the divine focus on a string on your neck, so you don't need to "put it away". You can drop it and it will still be safe around your neck.


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I will focus on your 2nd question and point out that the divine focus of a ranger is more easily replaced that that of a cleric or a paladin since its weight and (more importantly) cost are both "--". So we can assume that it won't last more than a few days or weeks, but you are constantly replacing it as needed during downtime.

Since the only time I have ever seen a divine focus being lost in play was when a PC was taken prisoner and stripped of his gear, the ranger is no more vulnerable in this respect than the cleric, and in fact might be in better shape since (1) There is a chance that his captors may fail to identify any sacred plant that he carries as being essential to his spellcasting, and (2) He only needs a minimal amount of downtime in a rural or wilderness area to replace his divine focus.

For the 4th question, the trait description does not mention any limitation on which spellcasting classes the birthmark can serve as a divine focus for.

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