Captured holy implements?

[Ryujin]

In our campaign, which seems to focus fairly heavily on undead, cults, and obscure religions, we keep coming upon evil priests with enchanted holy symbols. Our GM feels that such evil magic couldn't be transferred to a good or unaligned holy symbol by way of the Transfer Enchantment ritual. I maintain that the magic is simply power and that the form of the holy symbol determines what god/religion it works for.

While I simply abide by the rulings of my GM in these cases, I was wondering if anyone had seen an explicit ruling on this anywhere?

 

[DracoSuave]

RAW, a holy symbol is faith-agnostic.

Also, RAW, if the DM says it's not a legal holy symbol for you, then it's not.

 

[Wolfwood2]

In our campaign, which seems to focus fairly heavily on undead, cults, and obscure religions, we keep coming upon evil priests with enchanted holy symbols. Our GM feels that such evil magic couldn't be transferred to a good or unaligned holy symbol by way of the Transfer Enchantment ritual. I maintain that the magic is simply power and that the form of the holy symbol determines what god/religion it works for.

While I simply abide by the rulings of my GM in these cases, I was wondering if anyone had seen an explicit ruling on this anywhere?

Like a lot of 4E rules, the holy symbol implement rules are designed around playability and game balance first, with the assumption that the DM will change anything he finds stupid for his camapign world. So yeah, Transfer Enchantment should work fine, but your DM thinks that's stupid and is changing the rules. No biggie. I'm sure you'll have plenty of chances to get non-evil holy symbols.

 

[Danceofmasks]

RAW, most (if not all) divine classes can worship no gods, all gods, or any number inbetween.
But irregardless, whether or not an item is declared "usable loot," the GM should be keeping score as to how much gear you do/should have.

I.e. if there's stuff you can't use, either they shouldn't count towards packages, or alternate means be found to "use" them (e.g. turning in the item to be properly dealt with, and getting an equivalent item in exchange).

 

[Ryujin]

RAW, a holy symbol is faith-agnostic.

Also, RAW, if the DM says it's not a legal holy symbol for you, then it's not.

I would be interested in reading the source for your statement here, as what I have read states the exact opposite; that your holy symbol represents an aspect of the god you worship.

This GM has, in the past and in other games, given the enemy equipment that he says is 'evilly aligned' and causes damage to any non-evil character who tries to use it. His way of beefing up the opponents without dumping a metric tonne of magic on us by default, I guess. Since we keep being given this stuff that we can't use, I'll be trying to acquire the Disenchant ritual and use it to fire my ritual magic. Seems a waste though.

 

[Hammerhead]

Yeah, it sounds like your DM is being an idiot. I can't find the exact text, but Draco is right. Here, from the AV (p83): "Sometimes a holy symbol is keyed to a specific deity and can be used only by worshipers of that deity." That sounds a lot like an exception to the RAW to me, generally for the specific holy symbols with the deity in their name. In any case, you should be able to use Transfer Enchantment.

Maybe you should just go evil, and then get to use all the cool magic items that your enemies drop.

 

[Regicide]

Yeah, it sounds like your DM is being an idiot.

Not really. In 4E at least it's pretty standard that the monster's gear only works for them and not the players. If you kill an angel you don't get a radiant or flaming sword off them, you just get what the DM or module has down as their loot. It's just like video games where you kill hundreds of guys but none of them drop their weapon or armour, but occasionally you'll kill a bat and bam, it was carrying a full suit of yellow-named plate armour!

 

[Ryujin]

We don't do evil characters in his campaigns. It's reserved for "the other side." Mind you, we can get pretty darned close with our unaligned characters.

 

[Wolfwood2]

Yeah, it sounds like your DM is being an idiot. I can't find the exact text, but Draco is right. Here, from the AV (p83): "Sometimes a holy symbol is keyed to a specific deity and can be used only by worshipers of that deity." That sounds a lot like an exception to the RAW to me, generally for the specific holy symbols with the deity in their name. In any case, you should be able to use Transfer Enchantment.

He's not being an idiot. I suspect that the DM knows perfectly well what the base rules are and has decided to change them because he thinks it makes sense for his campaign and game world. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. The rules exist to serve the game at the table, not the other way around.

Unless Ryujin feels his group is hurting for treasure, what's the big deal? They can get the satisfaction of giving the symbols of evil gods a good smash, breaking them on rocks and stuff, without feeling like they're giving up valuable loot for it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, it is really entirely up to the DM. I wouldn't worry about it in the sense that it is really the DM's problem to come up with an appropriate amount of treasure. All the PCs can do is take what's offered. If he says it is unusable and you can't transfer the enchantment, then either you sell it for gold or disenchant it for residuum. Either way that's all its worth, you aren't really wasting anything. More to the point, you're getting every bit of what it is worth out of it.

In said DM's defense, its a campaign world fluff kind of thing. He wants you to be waving around holy symbols of YOUR god, not any old god. Certainly within his normal role as DM there.