A cleric who takes Vow of Poverty (Book of Exalted Deeds) can't carry a holy symbol. This is both true under the rules-as-written (he is allowed no material possessions except simple weapons, simple clothes, a spell component pouch and a sack containing day's food), and also confirmed by explicit Wizards of the Coast commentary in Vow of Poverty, Part 2:
[Classes for which] You Can Make [Vow of Poverty] Work, But It's a Big Handicap: […] Clerics have a lot of spells with divine foci, so it's hard to avoid them. Paladins and clerics cannot turn undead without a holy symbol.
This prevents him from turning undead or casting any spells requiring Divine Focus, which is most spells.
A reasonable DM would allow a cleric to carry the 1-gp wooden holy symbol, but that's technically a house rule, not a standard rule.
Within the official rules (which for the purposes of this question I define as any D&D 3.0 or 3.5 content either published by Wizards of the Coast, or appearing in Dragon or Dungeon magazine), is there any way for a Vow of Poverty cleric, without breaking his vow, to carry and use a holy symbol, or otherwise to cast spells requiring Divine Focus, or to turn undead?
Best Answer
Worldly Focus
Weird name for the effect, but this feat from Faiths of Eberron allows you to cast cleric spells without a divine focus. Note that it does nothing for turn undead, or any other usage of a holy symbol, which seems like an oversight to me but then so too does the lack of holy symbol in Vow of Poverty exceptions. But then, who actually uses turn undead to, ya know, turn the undead?
Summon Holy SymbolI had originally suggested summon holy symbol, as follows:
However, careful reading of the Conjuration (Summoning) rules indicates that summoned objects—unlike creatures—do not go away when the spell ends “unless the spell description indicates this.” Note that, even in core, there are no Conjuration (Summoning) spells that seem to remember this rule: summon instrument reads almost exactly like summon holy symbol, for instance. This makes absolutely no sense, but that is what the rules say, both in Player’s Handbook and Rules Compendium. My guess is that this rule was intended for instant summons (which, unlike most summoning spells, brings a particular item with your arcane mark to you) and maybe secret chest (which has its own special rules anyway), but it’s in the general Conjuration (Summoning) rules, not in the description of those spells. As a result, since summon holy symbol says nothing about the holy symbol disappearing, rules-as-written this orison can just create a permanent holy symbol out of thin air, and its round/level duration is meaningless since nothing happens once the duration ends.
That means the summoned holy symbol is no longer temporary, and there is no particular reason to think it should be value-less (Complete Champion indicates that it is not “particularly valuable” but that seems more to mean that it is the ordinary 1-gp holy symbol rather than one of “particular” value, rather than a holy symbol that is literally worthless). It is therefore difficult to argue that this spell is safe for those with Vow of Poverty.