Quote Originally Posted by GooeyChewie View Post
my clerics will often have their deity’s emblem worked into their weapons somehow. It might be worked into the filigree, or embossed on the business end, or (with DM permission) enchanted to appear as a glowing spectral symbol when I strike.
I also do this for my Divine casters, but I find it can push you into a gray area between "flavor skinning" and "mechanical benefit" when the question of whether the diety's holy symbol embossed on your shield can act as a divine focus, and since you can present your holy symbol without having to explicitly hold it in your hand, since it's on the Shield or the Mace you're already holding, is that an exploit?

RAW it works, because the description of the Holy Symbol focus in the PHB equipment section says that the holy symbol can be held, worn visibly, or stamped on a shield. The other spellcasting focus items don't make that distinction. To be safe, I will generally require that the cost of the holy symbol is added to the cost of the item it's etched on...just scrawling a symbol on your shield in crayon won't cut it.

It means this is more of a mechanical issue than a simple re-flavoring.

I often reflavor the weapons on my Artificers, to make them more in-line with their artificer focus, especially with my Warforged artificer; I describe them as integrated into their form, inspector gadget style, but they are detachable and visible when "stored", so it stays well within the realm of flavor text and not mechanical change; the dagger is clipped into my forearm, rater than tucked into a belt.

I also get pretty creative with arcane foci; I've used a feather quill as a "wand" for a scribe wizard. My minotaur Evoker pirate used a belaying pin as a "rod" for his arcane focus, and tended to use it as an improvised weapon to smack people with. He also had a Broom of Flying that I re-skinned to look like a fisherman's bill-hook. He didn't ride it like a witch on a broom, but it would hook him by his belt and carry him around, aligned vertically not horizontally, so he could hold on with one hand. It was a little goofy.