I'm running a couple different groups through the Lost Mines of Phandelver.
One of my players is a Tempest domain cleric and an interesting situation came up.
The group was taken captive by Glasstaff and left imprisoned with no equipment in the jail.
Overconfident, Glasstaff allowed them enough time to take a short rest, recovering enough that they might have a chance to escape. I was expecting a very rough combat, but the cleric instantly killed the first redbrand that stepped in.
(They were being pulled out one by one for interrogation, those that resisted were knocked out first)
The cleric goaded one of the redbrands to hit him, and when he was struck, he used wrath of the storm and applied his destructive wrath channel divinity to it for maximum damage.
I allowed it of course, for the fun of a successful escape from captivity, but afterwards I started wondering if it was even possible. Shouldn't he have needed his holy symbol?, I thought.
Looking over the cleric powers, only some channel divinity options even require a holy symbol. And, at that, a lot of things don't list any requirements like free hands or verbal components, etc.
By RAW, the cleric could be without his holy symbol, bound and gagged, and still be able to let loose a Wrath of the Storm with the Destructive Wrath channel divinity.
What does everyone think? I imagine the bound/gagged situation applies to a lot of other abilities as well. E: Giving the bound/gagged situation some further thought, I suppose you could rule them as incapacitated..
I think it's your choice how the connection to a character's diety is expressed.
If you want channel divinity to always require a holy symbol, it should. There's certainly enough implied reason to consider that such an item (which is mechanically used as a focus of divine energy, replacing material components, for example) would be required to channel divinity. Yet at the same time, the cleric is faithful, are they not? Does a piece of metal blind the deity to the suffering of their dedicated servant?
I think you made a call which was fun. It served the story. It allowed the players to extricate themselves from a hairy situation.
Don't worry too much about it. 
RAW - holy symbols are not required for Channel Divinity. This is important to note as some clerics and paladins (usually multiclass) prefer a component pouch over a holy symbol.
shivafang wrote:
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