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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7568143" data-attributes="member: 82106">I don't really understand what of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s statements you are actually disagreeing with. You talk about mechanical differences, and Pemerton calls them 'mechanical minutia'. You can assign more or less significance to those, but his point about not being able to tell from the external non-mechanical description of a character which it is still stands! As for the thematic differences, what exactly are they again? Both classes are holy warriors. They wear heavy armor and engage in melee combat on a regular basis. They can each bolster and heal themselves and their allies. Admittedly, there ARE mechanical differences, clerics are MUCH better as casters, to the degree that in effect you would be foolish to actually play your D&amp;D cleric as a melee combatant except at low levels where his casting is non-existent or largely used outside combat. Any cleric who hits 5th level becomes, in effect, a sort of armored 'wizard-like' guy with divine overtones. He'll surely continue to wear heavy armor because why not, but he's only likely to engage in melee if he's shot all his spells and gets desperate. I think the problem with 'the original cleric/paladin conceptions as put forth in OD&amp;D' is that the cleric didn't HAVE a strong conception that was distinct from the paladin's! You can claim it did forever, but there's not much between them, and that largely arguably rests more on a quirk of how half the cleric class becomes useless later on simply because casting is so overwhelmingly effective in D&amp;D! As I've posted before, IMHO the cleric should have been a branch of 'wizard' effectively, and the paladin been the basic archetype of holy warrior, if you're going to have both. 4e amusingly simply repeated OD&amp;D's mistakes on this point, and both classes suffered accordingly.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7568143, member: 82106"] I don't really understand what of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s statements you are actually disagreeing with. You talk about mechanical differences, and Pemerton calls them 'mechanical minutia'. You can assign more or less significance to those, but his point about not being able to tell from the external non-mechanical description of a character which it is still stands! As for the thematic differences, what exactly are they again? Both classes are holy warriors. They wear heavy armor and engage in melee combat on a regular basis. They can each bolster and heal themselves and their allies. Admittedly, there ARE mechanical differences, clerics are MUCH better as casters, to the degree that in effect you would be foolish to actually play your D&D cleric as a melee combatant except at low levels where his casting is non-existent or largely used outside combat. Any cleric who hits 5th level becomes, in effect, a sort of armored 'wizard-like' guy with divine overtones. He'll surely continue to wear heavy armor because why not, but he's only likely to engage in melee if he's shot all his spells and gets desperate. I think the problem with 'the original cleric/paladin conceptions as put forth in OD&D' is that the cleric didn't HAVE a strong conception that was distinct from the paladin's! You can claim it did forever, but there's not much between them, and that largely arguably rests more on a quirk of how half the cleric class becomes useless later on simply because casting is so overwhelmingly effective in D&D! As I've posted before, IMHO the cleric should have been a branch of 'wizard' effectively, and the paladin been the basic archetype of holy warrior, if you're going to have both. 4e amusingly simply repeated OD&D's mistakes on this point, and both classes suffered accordingly. [/QUOTE]

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