Celebrim
Legend
There are several problems.
First, you'll need to just get rid of the D&D wizard. The D&D wizard has no real historical basis. The vast majority of wizards of antiquity or myth are just variant clerics or shamans of some sort or the other. This is because the D&D wizard has been largely shorn of all of the occult trappings that come with real world magical traditions - and this is probably a good thing.
Once you've gotten rid of the D&D wizard, then you are free to use the cleric to take up the role of the D&D wizard as robe-wearing scholar and master of magic and divorce the cleric from the role of warrior of god that offends you. Indeed, you are free to use the cleric class to emulate every single spell-casting tradition. Cleric does a much better job of function as witch, theurgist, Hermeticist, cabalist, animist, diabolist, and so forth than the D&D wizard with its roots in 20th century popular fiction and parapsychology (which is simply magic shorn of its occult roots and given a pseudo-scientific gloss). There are vastly more sources of clerics out there than wizards, at least until we start hitting the mid 20th century. Indeed, it could be argued that the D&D wizard outright created the modern fantasy wizard, as prior to D&D wizards were just a whole lot more subtle, tended to be more occultist than scientist, and so forth.
The other real sticking point has creating some sort of robe wearing scholarly priest, other than the fact you were replicating a wizard, has always been multi-classing. In most editions of the game going back to 1e, if you were to take away the clerics weapon and armor proficiency, there would be all too easy ways to get them back by minimally investing in some other class. For example, in 1e had you pulled the weapon and armor proficiencies from cleric, I would have made a human 1st level fighter, then when I hit second level, I would have dual classed into your robe wearing cleric, and in very short order I would have created the armored war priest you don't want with all the full benefits of your scholarly cleric on top of it. In 3e, if you created a divine caster with better than cleric casting ability by limited armor wearing capability, it was easy to buy back the armor via multicasting or feats. And to stop that you have to in most editions give the cleric the wizards, "Can't cast while wearing armor" restrictions, which again goes back to the fact that an unarmored, scholarly cleric, is really just a wizard with a different name.
Ultimately, I've never found this necessary. Most clerics in my game world that are more than about 2nd level tend to be venerable 70 year old men or women with no physical stats above 7, and who consequently don't wear armor because they'd be crushed to the floor by 60 lbs of steel on their shoulders. Also they tend to live mostly in very large cities defended by layers of civic institutions, guards, and fortifications, meaning that most of the time their duties have absolutely nothing to do with gearing up like soldiers and wandering around like a bunch of clanking heavy infantry. Clerics that dress like soldiers are exceptions to the general rule that clerics are generally wearing robes and elaborate costumes, and more known by their power than their battle prowess. But I see no reason why the PC clerics can't wear whatever they like. Very few PC adventurers of any class in my game end up wearing heavy armor except when about to fight in a mass combat, simply because plate mail isn't very well suited to environmental rigors, extremes of the elements, rough and uneven terrain, bogs and marshes, ocean journeys, traversing glaciers, climbing up mountains and all the other things that adventurers do. A few extra points of AC are generally not worth the hassle, unless you know you'll spend the whole combat on basically flat field that two armies have met to contend and your are mounted on steed the whole time.
And if you are a cleric going to participate in that, why not use whatever armor is available in your culture?
First, you'll need to just get rid of the D&D wizard. The D&D wizard has no real historical basis. The vast majority of wizards of antiquity or myth are just variant clerics or shamans of some sort or the other. This is because the D&D wizard has been largely shorn of all of the occult trappings that come with real world magical traditions - and this is probably a good thing.
Once you've gotten rid of the D&D wizard, then you are free to use the cleric to take up the role of the D&D wizard as robe-wearing scholar and master of magic and divorce the cleric from the role of warrior of god that offends you. Indeed, you are free to use the cleric class to emulate every single spell-casting tradition. Cleric does a much better job of function as witch, theurgist, Hermeticist, cabalist, animist, diabolist, and so forth than the D&D wizard with its roots in 20th century popular fiction and parapsychology (which is simply magic shorn of its occult roots and given a pseudo-scientific gloss). There are vastly more sources of clerics out there than wizards, at least until we start hitting the mid 20th century. Indeed, it could be argued that the D&D wizard outright created the modern fantasy wizard, as prior to D&D wizards were just a whole lot more subtle, tended to be more occultist than scientist, and so forth.
The other real sticking point has creating some sort of robe wearing scholarly priest, other than the fact you were replicating a wizard, has always been multi-classing. In most editions of the game going back to 1e, if you were to take away the clerics weapon and armor proficiency, there would be all too easy ways to get them back by minimally investing in some other class. For example, in 1e had you pulled the weapon and armor proficiencies from cleric, I would have made a human 1st level fighter, then when I hit second level, I would have dual classed into your robe wearing cleric, and in very short order I would have created the armored war priest you don't want with all the full benefits of your scholarly cleric on top of it. In 3e, if you created a divine caster with better than cleric casting ability by limited armor wearing capability, it was easy to buy back the armor via multicasting or feats. And to stop that you have to in most editions give the cleric the wizards, "Can't cast while wearing armor" restrictions, which again goes back to the fact that an unarmored, scholarly cleric, is really just a wizard with a different name.
Ultimately, I've never found this necessary. Most clerics in my game world that are more than about 2nd level tend to be venerable 70 year old men or women with no physical stats above 7, and who consequently don't wear armor because they'd be crushed to the floor by 60 lbs of steel on their shoulders. Also they tend to live mostly in very large cities defended by layers of civic institutions, guards, and fortifications, meaning that most of the time their duties have absolutely nothing to do with gearing up like soldiers and wandering around like a bunch of clanking heavy infantry. Clerics that dress like soldiers are exceptions to the general rule that clerics are generally wearing robes and elaborate costumes, and more known by their power than their battle prowess. But I see no reason why the PC clerics can't wear whatever they like. Very few PC adventurers of any class in my game end up wearing heavy armor except when about to fight in a mass combat, simply because plate mail isn't very well suited to environmental rigors, extremes of the elements, rough and uneven terrain, bogs and marshes, ocean journeys, traversing glaciers, climbing up mountains and all the other things that adventurers do. A few extra points of AC are generally not worth the hassle, unless you know you'll spend the whole combat on basically flat field that two armies have met to contend and your are mounted on steed the whole time.
And if you are a cleric going to participate in that, why not use whatever armor is available in your culture?
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