Divine Focus

[Stormrunner]

I'd allow it, but certainly not for free!
Mechanics-wise, this is equivalent to allowing a wizard or sorceror to cast spells without needing material components. If Eschew Materials is important enough to be a feat, then Eschew Focus should cost a feat as well.
If you feel that's too strong, then you might rule that the tattoed focus takes up an item slot - a tattoo on the face might fill the "mask/lenses" slot, one on the hand might fill the "gloves" slot or a "ring" slot, and so on. However, this limitation is a little easier to powergame around by making items of different shapes (e.g., bracers of protection instead of ring of protection).

 

[Notmousse]

I'd allow it, but require either someone with the Craft Wonderous Item feat, or Craft Tattooing at a fairly high rank (DC 25 or 30). I'd put the cost at 250gp, roughly what a gold holy symbol would cost (as figured from what the silver holy symbol costs).

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I'd probably allow it tattooed on the palm of the hand.

 

[Li Shenron]

When casting a spell with a focus or a material component, I usually require a free hand BUT if the spell has a somatic component too I still require one free hand for everything (not two, or a hand for each component).

But I think anyway a good rule of thumb is to consider that a focus is approximately similar to a material component, so maybe a feat is quite a good compromise, since Eschew Material is a feat too.

 

[Aramis Simara]

There is also the view of the church. I think they would have a very strong opinion about such abuses to the symbol of their god.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Of course, they might not consider it an abuse at all...

 

[Cedric]

I had a cleric in a game I ran that had the very same concern. So he took Craft:Leatherworking and Craft:Woodworking. His idea being that if they were separated from their gear, he could fashion a make-shift holy symbol to last him until he got his gear back.

I thought it was a good idea at least, but it never came up in play.

 

[RangerWickett]

I would totally allow it, but then again I'm personally pretty lax religiously, and don't see what the big deal is with a tiny symbol. It's Dumbo's feather. Any god who refuses to grant magical power to a following because he lost his feather is a stupid god.

At most, I would say that the cleric uses the symbol to mentally focus on how to cast spells, so without a focus maybe his caster level would be reduced.

For your question, though, I would certainly allow a tattoo. If the cleric believes that the symbol has power, then that's good enough for me. And tattoos shouldn't be that expensive.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

RW's pretty much got it for me.

In our current game, at one point one of the clerics lost all of her gear, including her symbol. "By the rules" we knew she was, at that point, rendered more or less a Nodwick until we were out of the dungeon (which turned out to be quite a while). Suck-city. So we went through some stuff about raiding a room and cobbling together pieces off a few tables and chairs nailed together into a lightningbolt for her symbol, so she could cast spells.

After that, being that every character has at least three levels of Cleric in the group (we're odd, I suppose, everybody just decided to take some Cleric), we comissioned a set of pretty expensive miniature symbols for each deity that are strapped into leather bracers. Everybody in the party then has a miniature symbol for everybody else in the party, as well as themselves.

Probably not a bad idea, really. Give everybody in the party a symbol of your god ... as a gift ... they can keep it down there in the bottom of the backpack next to that iron ration they picked up at 1st level, until the GM yoinks your gear. Hopefully SOMEBODY will have their gear.

If somebody wanted to have their character tattoo the symbol on their chest like a freaky religious superman symbol ... sure ... as long as it fit the character. And if it ever came up, they'd have to take off their armor and present that pectoral pictoral to cast spells. Don't see it as overpowered.

--fje