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Holy Symbols: are they God-specific? Can they be altered?
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<blockquote data-quote="silentounce" data-source="post: 4388726" data-attributes="member: 67099"><p>I think the solution is rather simple and what I plan to do. When you include a holy symbol as treasure, but it is not a symbol of a deity that anyone in the party can use, or will potentially use later via multiclassing or adding of new PCs. Just don't count it as a magic item. Count it as treasure at 1/5th the value of the item. Essentially, that's what it is. You don't need to add any rituals, etc. If you want to award your cleric with a holy symbol he can use have it be one of his own faith. Roleplaying wise this could be more interesting, perhaps after defeating an enemy cleric he finds a pouch containing various holy symbols, not all of them magical of course. They are trophies that the enemy cleric takes. Maybe you can have it be tradition that clerics in the world carve their mark/rune onto their symbol, or perhaps it appears there by divine power when they wield it. This way, the party discovers the magical holy symbol your party's cleric finds belonged to an ancient hero or mentor as mentioned earlier. Or perhaps an old friend that trained/studied with the cleric, etc. Magic items are rare so maybe the description of it alone is unique and the cleric would recognize it (with a Religion check) as belonging to one of the above. There are a lot of different possibilities.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, my point is, when you include magic items that no one in the party can use you shouldn't count them as a magic item in the parcel system, but only as treasure, otherwise the characters will fall behind the power curve, which is necessary to maintain due to game balance. Granted, I'm just saying this as it appears to be 4e design philosophy. I'm not making any arguments for/against verisimilitude. This is a game balance issue. It also appears there are very few magic items in 4e that are totally unusable, so this shouldn't come up often.</p><p></p><p>The DM is the one who decides what treasure goes where, right? I understand this question originated from a published adventure, in fact, I was trying to come up for a solution myself.</p><p></p><p>What I'm going to do in this instance is just what I suggest. I'm going to have a collection of good holy symbols that the bad guys have been keeping as trophies, not many, mind you. The evil cleric will still have his own magically symbol, but it will be unusable by the cleric. He can decide what he wishes to do with it. Bless it and then destroy it, take it to his church, etc. I'll deduct its value from treasure given elsewhere.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Btw, the treasure outlay in the published adventure we are talking about actually falls short of what should be given out according to the DMG, especially when it comes to magic items. I added in a bit myself. Make a list of the magic items and treasure handed out if you don't believe me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="silentounce, post: 4388726, member: 67099"] I think the solution is rather simple and what I plan to do. When you include a holy symbol as treasure, but it is not a symbol of a deity that anyone in the party can use, or will potentially use later via multiclassing or adding of new PCs. Just don't count it as a magic item. Count it as treasure at 1/5th the value of the item. Essentially, that's what it is. You don't need to add any rituals, etc. If you want to award your cleric with a holy symbol he can use have it be one of his own faith. Roleplaying wise this could be more interesting, perhaps after defeating an enemy cleric he finds a pouch containing various holy symbols, not all of them magical of course. They are trophies that the enemy cleric takes. Maybe you can have it be tradition that clerics in the world carve their mark/rune onto their symbol, or perhaps it appears there by divine power when they wield it. This way, the party discovers the magical holy symbol your party's cleric finds belonged to an ancient hero or mentor as mentioned earlier. Or perhaps an old friend that trained/studied with the cleric, etc. Magic items are rare so maybe the description of it alone is unique and the cleric would recognize it (with a Religion check) as belonging to one of the above. There are a lot of different possibilities. Anyway, my point is, when you include magic items that no one in the party can use you shouldn't count them as a magic item in the parcel system, but only as treasure, otherwise the characters will fall behind the power curve, which is necessary to maintain due to game balance. Granted, I'm just saying this as it appears to be 4e design philosophy. I'm not making any arguments for/against verisimilitude. This is a game balance issue. It also appears there are very few magic items in 4e that are totally unusable, so this shouldn't come up often. The DM is the one who decides what treasure goes where, right? I understand this question originated from a published adventure, in fact, I was trying to come up for a solution myself. What I'm going to do in this instance is just what I suggest. I'm going to have a collection of good holy symbols that the bad guys have been keeping as trophies, not many, mind you. The evil cleric will still have his own magically symbol, but it will be unusable by the cleric. He can decide what he wishes to do with it. Bless it and then destroy it, take it to his church, etc. I'll deduct its value from treasure given elsewhere. Btw, the treasure outlay in the published adventure we are talking about actually falls short of what should be given out according to the DMG, especially when it comes to magic items. I added in a bit myself. Make a list of the magic items and treasure handed out if you don't believe me. [/QUOTE]
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Holy Symbols: are they God-specific? Can they be altered?
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