The rules are really inconsistent in how Holy Symbols and Holy Water are created. I'm taking a middle ground: no, it doesn't take three priests and a hallowed temple to consecrate a holy symbol or make holy water, but neither is it possible as an instant 2nd level spell!

First I'll give the method from the Complete Priest's Handbook, then my adaptations in bold italic.

Holy water, that bane of vampires and many other monsters, is created in the following way:
In a temple of the god, In an area blessed and secure from interruptions--a temple is ideal but not essential-- three priests of second level or higher two priests, paladins, or rangers of high enough level to cast the necessary spells stand over an empty FULL water-basin and perform a ritual of prayer. They pray for the god's blessing and protection for an entire hour. At the end of that time, they each cast a spell, and do so simultaneously: One casts Create Water, no, the water is already there the second first casts Protection from Evil, and the third second casts Purify Food and Drink. Half a gallon of holy water is created.

Holy symbols are enchanted in the same way. Each enchantment takes an hour, requires three priests two priests, paladins, or rangers of high enough level to cast the necessary spells (substituting Sanctuary for Create Water -- Purify Food and Drink! Create Water is never required. A holy symbol needs two spells, Sanctuary and Protection from Evil) , and requires a material component: Some object carved with the god's symbol a holy symbol of the highest quality possible prayerfully made or chosen by the character.

Although customary for priests of the same faith to work together to make Holy Water and Holy Symbols, priests of any two friendly deities of the same Pantheon can work together for that purpose.

Material component for Flame Walk

• ¹/₂ cup zinc chloride (zinc and hydrogen chloride)
• 2 quarts water
• ¹/₄ cup ferric chloride
• 3 tablespoons boric acid
• 3 tablespoons ammonium phosphate

Material component for Pyrotechnics

Pyrotechnic Powder is compounded of 15 parts saltpetre, 3 parts charcoal, 2 parts sulphur, and 1 part of either strontium, copper, barium, sodium, calcium, or iron or a mixture thereof.

Material component for True/False Seeing and Omniscient Eye

True Seeing and Omniscient Eye require an eye ointment made from magic mushroom powder, saffron, rosemary, rosewater, beeswax, and refined and purified animal fat; it must be prepared by the caster within one week of use.

False Seeing uses an ointment made from poppy dust, pink orchid essence, rosemary, rosewater, beeswax, and refined and purified animal fat; it too must be prepared by the caster within one week of use.

First, of dried herbs, crushed, take:

• 1 T damiana leaf
• 1 T orris root
• 2 T wormwood (Artemisia absinthium)
• 3 T mugwort

And place them all together in a mortar and grind them fine as powder.

When you have done, take the powder and strew it in:

• 1 quart of good red wine, of a quality fit for a feasting table.

Stir with a wand of hazel 7 times deasil good fortune and insight to gain, then stir with a wand of flying rowan 7 times widdershins for protection and to banish all bane.

Place in the vessel a luck stone and let the whole steep for 1 full day but no longer than 2.

When ready to cast your spell, warm the wine until it steams, strain it and drink it (the wands and luckstone can be reused).

To purify the item(s) to be Identified take bunches of each parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme sufficient to bind with thread of red linen to a hazel wand. Place this wand in a brazier of copper or of bronze and set it aflame and pass each item to be identified 7 times through the purifying smoke.

Next take holy water and sprinkle it upon each item 7 times.

Place the item(s) upon fine white linen with no stain or blemish that has been washed in rain water and bleached in the sun. Take fine salt and bestrew it in a circle around the items and leave them there for 8 hours or until you are ready to cast your spell, whichever comes last.

To cast ESP drink a glass of mead or cider in which mugwort, cinnamon, and rose petals (1 t of each per cup of liquid), a coin-sized piece of copper, and a clear quartz crystal have been steeped for no less than 24 hours--potency is enhanced if allowed to steep longer, up to one month. Can be prepared in advance and bottled, ready for use when needed. The crystal is reusable.

Iron Vigil, from Spells & Magic, is ridiculously overpowered as written. We will use the following version:

This spell allows the priest to ignore hunger, thirst, and extremes of climate for an extended period of time. While the spell is in effect, the priest requires no food or drink. He is effectively immune to exposure, dehydration, and heat or cold injury, since no naturally occurring climatic condition will cause him harm. (Lightning, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other such hazardous phenomena can still cause physical injury, of course.)

During the iron vigil, the priest is able to ignore the need to sleep by choosing to pray instead. While praying, the priest can keep watch on his surroundings, but he suffers a +1 penalty to any surprise checks.

At the vigil’s end, the priest must eat one substantial meal and drink no less than one quart of water or other liquid for every twelve hours the vigil was maintained (as an example, a quart of milk would serve both purposes). If no food or water is available, the character must make a Constitution check once every four hours at a cumulative –1 penalty or fall into a coma and perish within 1d3 days if he receives no aid. He also requires at least four hours of rest for each day that he did not eat, drink, or sleep during his vigil. For ever four hours that the conditions for recovery are not met, the priest suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to THAC0, reaction time, and all proficiency checks. He must have fully recovered from the effects of his vigil before he can again cast Iron Vigil. Magical food such as Goodberries is not sufficient to restore the priest.

Thoughtwave, from Tome of Magic, is another unbalanced spell. I have made the following changes:

Thoughtwave allows a priest to send a short but powerful message to one or more specific individuals, informing them of his situation and general location. The spell instantly generates a powerful mental impulse indicative of the caster's general mental state--anger, fear, pain, despair, etc.

To be able to cast this spell the priest must designate one or more recipients. Each recipient is given a diamond of no less than one-fifth carat weight; the person and the talisman are then attuned to the priest. The diamond must remain on the person; to facilitate this many people have the diamond set into a ring, pendant, or earring, or even, if the chance of robbery or discovery by enemy forces is high, glued into a tooth or slipped under the skin through a small incision.

The caster can designate as many as ten persons to receive the same message through Thoughtwave, but for each person he would include he also needs his own faceted diamond; for one correspondent, he only needs a one-fifth carat gem. For ten, he would need a two carat stone. They should all be as nearly flawless as possible; a diamond with no inclusions or blemishes visible under magnification to a trained gem-cutter has only a 1% chance of shattering per message. Large and easy to see inclusions that impact the brilliance of the diamond are likely to threaten its structural strength as well; such flawed stones have a 20% chance of breaking after each use.

There is no range limitation to the spell, although it cannot be projected outside the plane occupied by the caster. Individuals receiving the impulse automatically know who sent it and gain a clear indication of the mood and situation of the caster. They also intuitively know the general source of the spell, although they are unable to pinpoint rooms, dungeon levels, or landmarks. For example, a fighter could suddenly be struck by an image of Father Rastibon, who is injured and in great pain somewhere along the forest road. A priest might suddenly sense that his patriarch is being tortured in the dungeons of Castle Varrack. However, communication is one-way only. The priest has no way of knowing whether or not his message was received.

The following spells from The Player's Handbook have also been changed. They are either overpowered, unbalanced (or unbalancing) or they don't fit in my game settings.

By means of this spell material of one sort can be converted into a finished product that is of the same material. Thus, with two or three castings (occasionally more) the spellcaster can fabricate a wooden bridge from a clump of trees (first casting: trees to logs; second casting: logs to timber and lumber; third casting: lumber to bridge). In like fashion a rope can be made from a patch of hemp, clothes from flax, and so forth. Magical or living things cannot be created or altered by a fabricate spell (thus a sheep could not be sheared for wool to make clothes). The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication (fields of hemp and flax must be ready for harvest; balsa will not have the strength of oak; etc.). If the caster works with a mineral, the area of effect is reduced by a factor of 27 (1 cubic foot per level instead of 1 cubic yard).

Articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship (jewellery, swords, glass, fine artwork, etc.) cannot be fabricated. All items require a craft/NWP roll; penalties for non-proficiency apply.

Casting requires one full turn per cubic yard (or foot) of material to be affected by the spell.

This spell causes matter to vanish. It may even affect energy of a magical nature, such as Bigby's forceful hand, but not a globe of invulnerability or an antimagic shell. Magic items save using the saving throws of their creators. Disintegration is instantaneous, and its effects are permanent. Any single creature can be affected, even undead. Nonliving matter, up to a 2 ft x 2 ft x 10 ft area, can be obliterated by the spell. The spell creates a thin, green ray that causes physical material touched to glow and vanish, leaving traces of fine dust. Creatures that successfully save vs. spell have avoided the ray (material items have resisted the magic) and are not affected. Only the first creature or object struck can be affected.

The material components are a lodestone and a pinch of diamond dust.

Priests aren't the only ones who do well to cultivate a good relationship with the Watchtowers. It is also wise for mages to acknowledge them, to call upon their protection when casting spells, creating magic items, or simply studying their craft, for these powerful and still mysterious spirits are quick to answer their friends once a mage has learned to summon them. Mages who walk in harmony with them and with the natural world have a 90% chance of success when casting Summon Elemental. Those who have ignored them prior to learning the spell can expect to fail 90% of the time until a positive relationship has been established.

There are actually four spells within the Summon Elemental spell. The wizard is able to conjure an air, earth, fire, or water elemental, assuming he has the material component for the particular elemental. (A considerable fire source must be in range to conjure a fire elemental; a large amount of water must be available to conjure a water elemental.) Every mortal has one element to which they are most attuned. Conjured elementals have an average of 8 Hit Dice, but if the caster calls upon his primary element a 10 Hit Dice elemental will appear. If very strongly identified with one element the friend who comes to the mage's call might be as much as 12 Hit Dice. There is a trade-off. If that strongly aligned mage ever has to call the opposing element, he will only be able to summon a 6 or 4 Hit Dice elemental. In any case each type of elemental can be conjured only once per day.

The elemental remains until its manifestation is destroyed due to damage or until the spell's duration expires. Note that water elementals are destroyed if they are ever more than 60 yards from a large body of water and fire elementals, if more than 60 yards from a bonfire or larger fire source.

The material component of the spell (besides a sufficient quantity of the appropriate element) is a small amount of one of the following:

• Air Elemental--burning incense or music
• Earth Elemental--potters' clay
• Fire Elemental--sulphur and phosphorus
• Water Elemental--holy water

(See Spheres and Planes for general information about the Astral and Outer Planes. This version is specific to Erden.)

When this spell is cast, the wizard sends his mind to another plane of existence in order to receive advice and information from the inhabitants there. Due to the difficulty of achieving and maintaining contact only brief answers are given. One question can be asked each round. The veracity of the answers is limited by the target's knowledge.

Intense, prolonged prayer is necessary before Contact Other Plane can even be attempted (3 turns of intense concentration without distractions or interruptions); moreover the spell itself is exhausting, and can even be dangerous. However, by its use a mage can attempt to question a god, a departed soul, or sometimes an elemental.

Several conditions must be met. When attempting to contact someone in the Astral Plane, the mage must have known, or have detailed information about, the deceased person, and have in their possession an item that belonged to that person. Second, whoever they wish to contact has to be there. If they have moved on, there can be no useful contact. In the first week (10 days) after death, the spell has a 98% chance of succeeding but after that the likelihood starts dropping quickly. Between 1 week and 1 month there is a 90% chance that the entity can still be reached, by two months the chances have dropped to 80%, three months, 70%, and so forth, down to only a 2% chance after 11 months. The only exceptions to this are if the entity is either a saint, or one of those unfortunate souls who died leaving some vital task unfinished, or were slain by violence and seek justice. They remain reachable for a much longer time, unable or unwilling to forget.

To contact the Elemental sub-plane requires, first and foremost, a good relationship with the Watchtowers. It is wise for mages to acknowledge them, to call upon their protection when casting spells, creating magic items, or simply studying their craft, for these powerful and still mysterious spirits are quick to answer their friends once a mage has learned to contact them. Mages who walk in harmony with them and with the natural world have a 90% chance of success when casting Contact Other Plane. Those who have ignored them prior to learning the spell can expect to fail 90% of the time until a positive relationship has been established.

The material component of the spell is a small amount of one of the following:

• Air Elemental--burning incense or music
• Earth Elemental--potters' clay
• Fire Elemental--sulphur and phosphorus
• Water Elemental--holy water

Finally, a mage can attempt to contact the gods. Those who lack a strong walk of faith are either ignored or--more likely--are not sufficiently attuned to the gods to hear their voices. The gods look more favourably upon mages who have performed some act of service or charity or whose questions are to benefit others. For example, if the mage is trying to solve a murder, Fursete will almost certainly help him.

There is a slight risk (10%) that the sheer power and presence of the gods can overwhelm the caster, throwing him into a state of such confusion and wonder that he is almost catatonic, sometimes falling into a death-like trance. He is very vulnerable during this time, and must be protected and carefully nursed back to health. This condition can persist for 1d4 weeks before the mage recovers, and forever after he is untroubled by fear of mere mortal dangers (the caster's saving throws against magical fear attacks is increased by +4).

(formerly Dimension Door; however this revised spell gives no access to the Astral Plane)

By means of a Doorway spell, the wizard instantly transfers himself up to 30 yards distance per level of experience. This special form of teleportation allows for no error, and the wizard always arrives at exactly the spot desired--whether by simply visualizing the area (within spell transfer distance, of course) or by stating direction such as, "300 yards straight downward," or, "upward to the northwest, 45 degree angle, 420 yards." If the wizard arrives in a place that is already occupied by solid matter, he will still materialise, forming around the object already there, usually with painful, sometimes fatal, results. Even blades of grass, growing in the target area, can impale the caster's feet and have to be removed. Gaseous and liquid matter will be displaced. If distances are stated and the spellcaster arrives with no support below his feet (i.e., in mid-air), falling and damage result unless further magical means are employed. Nonetheless most mages attempt to arrive a foot or so above the ground to prevent embedding debris in their feet.

All that the wizard wears or carries, subject to a maximum weight equal to 500 pounds of nonliving matter, or half that amount of living matter, is transferred with the spellcaster. However, if a Bag of Holding or similar nilspace pocket is brought through the nilspace of a Doorway spell, there is a 25% chance the bag will rupture and scatter its contents irretrievably into the void.

The material component is a square white silk handkerchief, between 8" and 12" per side. The opposite corners are brought together, point to point, as the spell is cast. Recovery from use of a Doorway spell requires one round.

At any time, even as an acolyte, the cleric may procure one or more dogs (Canis familiaris, any breed or size). These animals may be acquired by any reasonable and humane method and must be obtained as pups of no more than 3 months of age. These animals must be raised by the cleric, some training must occur (i.e. housebroken--or 'campbroken'--comes when called, knows such commands as 'sit', 'stay', 'down', and 'no') and a bond must be established so that the pet knows the cleric as master. Additional training may occur, but it is not mandatory, and no animal handling or training proficiencies are needed to use this spell; the primary component is the animal's loyalty.

When the dog is 1 or more years old, in the event of a combat situation the cleric can--literally--"cry 'Havoc' and let slip the dogs of war". If the animal is within earshot of the cleric's voice (within 200 yds, maximum normal range, with modifiers applied at DM's discretion under conditions where hearing might be impaired or enhanced) it will be changed into a war-dog. The pet(s) will metamorphose into large mastiff(s), Rhodesian ridgeback(s), or wolfhound(s). These animals' keen senses of smell and hearing will make them particularly adept at detecting hidden enemies. The dog(s) will attack at the cleric's command, and if the cleric is down (unconscious, injured and unable to move, etc.) will fight to defend him even at the cost of their own lives. However, if one of these dogs is killed in his defence the cleric will suffer 2d4 of damage. This damage is not responsive to magical healing. Only natural healing will restore the loss. Until the damage has been restored Perception will suffer a -2 penalty due to depression and grief. Cry 'Peace' to end the spell before the natural duration has expired.

The Dogs of War

Lowers THAC0 by 2; can only be cast on fighters or fighter/multi-class creatures. The material component is the cleric's holy symbol.

The reverse of Hero's Skill is Fighter's Bane. Fighter's Bane raises the victim's THAC0 by 2. To be effective, the priest must touch the intended victim, and the victim must fail a saving throw vs. spell.

A Wand is a magical object through which a mage (wizard, witch, sorcerer, sorceress, etc.) channels his or her magical powers. Some spells require the use of a wand; others are enhanced thereby, even though it is possible to perform the spell without one. Wands have different cores, woods, lengths and flexibilities. These factors, along with the owner's life experience and magical ability, combine to define a wand's character. As a result, no two wands are exactly alike.