Holy Symbols and Natural Attack Q's

[dinsdale]

1) How do you make a holy symbol? Obviously, creating the physical item would require an appropriate Craft check. Once you have that, how do you make it "holy?" I could be blind, but I haven't seen rules for this anywhere.

2) For creatures with multiple primary natural weapons (say a horse's 2 hoofs) and using the attack action (not full round attack), do they get to attack with both weapons? Based upon what I've read, I am inferring that this is the case, but don't think I've seen it explicitly stated in the rules or FAQ.

Thanks.

 

[Pielorinho]

Originally posted by dinsdale 1) How do you make a holy symbol? Obviously, creating the physical item would require an appropriate Craft check. Once you have that, how do you make it "holy?" I could be blind, but I haven't seen rules for this anywhere.

Per the rules, there's nothing necessary to make it holy beyond crafting it into the appropriate shape. I think this is appropriate: since the holy symbol is a focus for magic, rather than a magical object itself, simply getting it into the right symbolic shape is sufficient for making it useful. If you want to change this, I'd suggest a cleric can use a turning attempt to change an appropriate object into a holy symbol. Obviously, you don't want to say that this turning attempt requires a holy symbol.

2) For creatures with multiple primary natural weapons (say a horse's 2 hoofs) and using the attack action (not full round attack), do they get to attack with both weapons? Based upon what I've read, I am inferring that this is the case, but don't think I've seen it explicitly stated in the rules or FAQ.

It depends.

A horse's attacks are 2 hooves +3 melee, with damage of Hoof 1d6+2. That means that the horse may make, as a full attack, two attack rolls, one for each hoof; each hoof that hits does 1d6+2 damage. If the horse makes a standard attack action rather than a full attack action (through an AoO, a move-and-attack, a charge, or some variant), it may attack with only one hoof.

A raven's attack is claws+4 melee, with damage of claws 1d2-5. Whether making a full attack action or a standard attack, the raven attacks with both claws but only makes one attack roll and one damage roll.

With very few exceptions (e.g., a tiger's pounce ability), creatures may ONLY make multiple attack rolls if they take the full attack action.

Daniel

 

[dinsdale]

Thanks for the assist:

1) My gut feeling is that there should be something more to it, at least in a roleplaying sense. Clearly you shouldn't be able to do:

"Oh, my holy symbol was just destroyed. give me 30 seconds to bend this paperclip into the right shape and I'm back in business."

I'll probably go with minimum quality requirements for the base item and either an extended period of prayer over the item, or your turning attempt idea, which I like also.

2) For game balance it seemed like it should be that way (why should a skeleton get two claw attacks on a standard attack action when a PC only gets one). However, most of the places I have found in the rules mention that you don't get your secondary attacks, but don't indicate what happens with multiple primary attacks. Hence, my confusion.

 

[Pielorinho]

Thanks for the assist:
"Oh, my holy symbol was just destroyed. give me 30 seconds to bend this paperclip into the right shape and I'm back in business."

On the other hand, how many times have you seen a movie in which the good guys, confronted by vampires, improvised a cross out of two sticks to ward the monsters off?

As a total houserule, you could probably allow improvised holy symbols, but say that any spell or turning attempt using the improvised symbol is at a -2 caster level penalty.

Without that houserule, use the craft rules for making a "typical item." DC 10, can be done by the untrained. A typical cleric, INT 10, could take 10 on the check: in a single week, this cleric could make 100 sp of wooden holy symbols, or 10 gp worth of wooden holy symbols, or 10 wooden holy symbols. That means it'd take slightly less than a day to carve a new symbol, given the appropriate tools, for a normal cleric. That doesn't sound too bad to me.

2) For game balance it seemed like it should be that way (why should a skeleton get two claw attacks on a standard attack action when a PC only gets one). However, most of the places I have found in the rules mention that you don't get your secondary attacks, but don't indicate what happens with multiple primary attacks. Hence, my confusion.

I think you're misunderstanding. Skeletons get 2 claws +0 melee, Claw 1d4. That means that as a full attack, a skeleton can attack twice: once with each hand.

As a standard action, however, the skeleton can only make one attack, same as nearly everyone else in the D&D universe. It may make one claw attack.

The only exception I can think of to this policy is that creatures with the pounce ability may attack with multiple weapons in the first round of combat even if they move or charge. Everyone else, AFAIK, may only make a single attack roll when using the standard attack action.

This confused us when we first were playing, and we'd often forget, moving and then making multiple attacks. Unless you have pounce, you can't do that.

Daniel

 

[dinsdale]

I think you're misunderstanding.
...
As a standard action, however, the skeleton can only make one attack, same as nearly everyone else in the D&D universe.

I think you misunderstood my misunderstanding ..

I was trying to say, I liked that the rules as you stated them agree with game balance considerations, ie. skeletons and other monsters should only get one claw attack on a standard attack action, just like everyone else.

I am and was in agreement with the statements in your last post. Sorry if that was unclear and thanks again.

 

[Pielorinho]

Ah, okay. My bad. FWIW, here are the parts of the SRD you're looking for, in the Combat Action section:

Full attack [Full][AoO: No]
Description: If a character gets more than one attack per action, the character must use the full attack action to use those additional attacks. A character does not need to specify the targets of a the attacks ahead of time. A character can see how the earlier attacks turn out before assigning the later ones.
The character may take a 5 ft. step before, after, or between the attacks.
If a character gets multiple attacks based on a character's base attack bonus, the character must make the attacks in order from highest bonus to lowest.
Deciding between an Attack or a Full Attack Action: After a character's first attack, if the character has not yet taken a 5-foot step, a character can decide to move instead of making a character's remaining attacks.
The character uses each attack to attack an opponent in a space that character threatens. The attack roll is:
d20 + Attack modifiers vs. AC of target
Attack modifiers consist of the character's base attack bonus, size adjustment, strength adjustment, and any other bonuses that apply to the attack roll.
A natural 1 on the d20 is always a miss, and a natural 20 on the d20 is always a hit.
If the modified attack roll is equal to or greater than the AC of the target, the attack is successful. The attack may also be a Threat. See Critical Hits and Dealing Damage, below, for more details.
If the character is attacking an armed opponent while unarmed, the character provokes an immediate attack of opportunity from the target which is resolved before the character's attack. Note that under certain circumstances, a character attacking without a weapon is still considered "armed".
A character can choose to fight defensively when taking the full attack action. If a character does so, the character takes a -4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for the same round.

Note the bolded text, and note that it doesn't distinguish between iterative attacks and attacks with multiple weapons.

Daniel