Funny Belgarathmth, your first reference is about the same Turpin I mentioned up top. Such brief treatments on the Internet, including anything we say here, need to be taken carefully and not confused with serious historical research. But even a quick read through of such things will show that the bludgeoning rule was applied, at least in medieval literature, sometimes. Often enough, I think its safe to say Gygax did not hatch the idea of his own initiative. But one problem is we're talking about a long period of time. From Dark Ages, to Middle Ages, to Renaissance (never mind if we're including the ancient world...) we're looking at over 1000 years of time. Although it is completely true the bludgeoning rule was originally introduced to AD&D as a balancing issue, it does seem to have been occasionally seen as a rule for military clergy (although not in Turpin's time! Traditionally he died at the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778. Although the Catholic Church says he died on Sept 2, 800. Gotta love medieval record keeping...), at least in some medieval literature. Much like the crossbow was also "outlawed" by the church in 1139 (at least for use against Christians); that law also seems to have had little or no actual impact on usage.
I don't know if it was ever really a rule in Christianity. Although the Mongols, for example, did have a taboo against spilling royal blood. So, when they invaded Baghdad, they wrapped the caliph in a carpet and had him trampled to death by horses. People really are good at finding loopholes.
Funny Belgarathmth, your first reference is about the same Turpin I mentioned up top. Such brief treatments on the Internet, including anything we say here, need to be taken carefully and not confused with serious historical research. But even a quick read through of such things will show that the bludgeoning rule was applied, at least in medieval literature, sometimes. Often enough, I think its safe to say Gygax did not hatch the idea of his own initiative. But one problem is we're talking about a long period of time. From Dark Ages, to Middle Ages, to Renaissance (never mind if we're including the ancient world...) we're looking at over 1000 years of time. Although it is completely true the bludgeoning rule was originally introduced to AD&D as a balancing issue, it does seem to have been occasionally seen as a rule for military clergy (although not in Turpin's time! Traditionally he died at the Battle of Roncesvalles in 778. Although the Catholic Church says he died on Sept 2, 800. Gotta love medieval record keeping...), at least in some medieval literature. Much like the crossbow was also "outlawed" by the church in 1139 (at least for use against Christians); that law also seems to have had little or no actual impact on usage.
I don't know if it was ever really a rule in Christianity. Although the Mongols, for example, did have a taboo against spilling royal blood. So, when they invaded Baghdad, they wrapped the caliph in a carpet and had him trampled to death by horses. People really are good at finding loopholes.
No doubt about that! I'm not sure if it was ever codified as an actual church law, but it was certainly a common convention in medieval stories. (Tuck, Cuthbert, later versions of Turpin). But Medieval European history can be like a moving target. Many stories were oral traditions for generations before being written down, and it can be hard to tell where history begins and folk lore ends sometimes. But it was common enough that by the 19th century many writers thought it was an actual church law.
As mentioned, no rule seems to be purely arbitrary. Most can be traced back to an historical basis and perhaps no literary work was more important than LOTR as the precedent for a huge part of the foundational framework.
Multi and dual classing take care of anyone who find the limitations of one pure class too restrictive.
Thanks for the answers concerning clerics. It does seem a bit strange, probably why most writers never mention such things.
Ooh, I have a another question: how do sorcerers choose spells? Do they hear some divine, demonic or draconic voice in their heads, "press 1 for Agannazar's Scorcher", or do they just randomly appear. In crpg's you can choose, and I suppose in PnP you have to roll a die, but is it random or do you have to make a certain roll to get what you chose?
I always found it interesting that clerics and such not being allowed to use bladed weapons... Even though with a blunt weapon you can do even more nasty damage to whatever you are swinging it at.
@Imperator Sorcerers can choose their spells in P&P. Their magic is a manifestation of their own willpower, personality, and ingenuity. They don't necessarily choose intentionally, but they mentally picture the effects they want to achieve and it usually just happens in a way that a wizard would recognize as a particular spell.
Dual-classing doesn't make you forget what you know. That's just BG's way of enforcing the rule for it.
In order to master a new class quickly (magecraft normally takes 12-16 years before you can master a single cantrip), you must focus on using magic to the exclusion of all else, the same for other professions, to learn the crucial skills as quickly as possible (it's also why the stat requirements are much higher....unless you're exceptionally skilled, it would take years of constant practice to even learn the skills needed to be level 1). You don't actually lose your old abilities, but using them during an encounter causes you to gain no xp for that encounter, because you're relying on your old skills, instead of learning how to better use your current ones, and thus you learned nothing from that encounter.
It's only once you've surpassed your previous abilities in proficieny, that you can begin to meld your combat styles together without interfering with your new path of study.
Fighters, mages, clerics, and thieves, all have different fighting styles, and learning to use their unique styles forces you to change how you fight, resulting in a different hit chance.
Humans are considered far too flighty to have the disipline to master multiple classes at once, which is why demi-humans can multi-class and Humans abandon a class and begin another (up to one from each class pool, if they have the stats for it).
(Your HP and Saves bonuses aren't lost when you dual-class).
Mythos priest, cleric particularly devoted to a specific Diety, have different equipment and spellcasting rules, totally up to the whims of their gods. Less devoted clerics are generic and just follow some common traditional oaths, but without the rabid devotion to their god's creed that a Mythos priest has. (Technically, Clerics of Talos cannot cast any healing spells...only reversed inflict versions, and gain greater access to the weather sphere, allowing them to call down lightning or use other natural forces of destruction. And clerics of Helm should be able to use any weapons a fighter could, but only get divination, protection, battle, and lesser healing spheres))
Sorcerer spells are bursts of inspiration due to their natural talent to wield the weave, that the sorcerer then forms loosely over time into a given spell....and technically...in PnP at least, can even break down and reform spells into new spells (but only when gaining a new level, only 1 spell per level up, and it must be at least 1 level lower then the highest level they can cast), representing their more chaotic mastery of magic, vs the more stable craft used by Wizards. They can also learn custom spells (normal handbook spells are common enough that they can simply pick them without needing scrolls) from scrolls at level up without having to do spell research to learn it, if it's the same level as the new spell they can choose from and they have room in their known spells (can also be used for the trade-out thing mentioned above).
The 2nd edition sorcerer (from Netheril), could learn 1 new spell at each level up naturally, up to their highest cast-able level (similar to a specialist, but without restricting it to a specific school), and also learn new spells from scrolls...but unlike mages who could learn as many spells as they wanted since they scribed them into spellbooks, which they could have dozens of, and memorized them by reading from the books, sorcerers had a hard limit on the number of each spells they could know at each spell-level based on their intelligence and couldn't forget spells that weren't very useful to make further room.
@belgarathmth ever heard of alternate name for the morning star? It used to be called a holy water sprinkler. Guess why? I don't think anyone in the thread stated that the clergy of the Catholic Church were always restricted, just that it was an issue later, much like the marriage restriction for the clergy. Priests were allowed to marry for longer than they have been prohibited, but it is so engrained that many are shocked to find out the history. The holy orders were to only made up of priests, and knights certainly did not fight only with swords!
I always found the weapon restrictions lame. Clerics of war gods like Tempus aren't going to be using blunt weapons. They're going to use weapons that their god uses like battleaxes and two-handed swords.
I always found it interesting that clerics and such not being allowed to use bladed weapons... Even though with a blunt weapon you can do even more nasty damage to whatever you are swinging it at.
I always found it interesting that clerics and such not being allowed to use bladed weapons... Even though with a blunt weapon you can do even more nasty damage to whatever you are swinging it at.
This is one thing that has always annoyed me about 2ndEd. I look past most of the other little things that many people gripe about all day. This, however, irks me.
Here's why.
1. It's the ONE THING that all non-druid religions agree on. A priest of Bane wont pick up a sword to kill a priest of Sune. "Whao, what kind of evil God worshipping maniac do you think I am?!. When we sacrifice people, we shatter their ribs and watch them suffocate. Like civilized folk.".
2. The reason as it's been described to me...is that they don't like bloodshed. Blunt weapons don't draw blood?!?
3. Their Gods, that they WORSHIP. Grant them bladed weapons. They allow them all to magically produce a flaming sword to use to stab and slash people. It's like a parent trying to get a baby to eat vegetables. "Listen, you can't go through life using nothing but blunt weapons. It's cute, that you are into that. But please just TRY the bladed weapon. Look, I'll even make it engulfed in flame for you. You're now the envy of every warrior. Oh by the way, my Holy Symbol is a bladed weapon. So...yeah it's OK to draw some blood. I mean I became a God by drawing lots of blood all the time! It's O...K..."
You're overthinking it Lateralus. Its an obsolete/legacy rule plain and simple. In the original D&D, even before 1E, the setting and idea was derived from medieval European fantasy. During part of the middle ages, Church law prohibited clergy from using edged weapons. Well it just so happened this nicely helped with game balance; in those early days, there were no weapon proficiencies or specialization or anything. So the only things separating a cleric from a warrior in melee were d8 hit dice, and a slightly inferior thac0 (actually attack table, thac0 hadn't been conceived yet). So if the cleric was restricted from blades, they couldn't use the very best melee weapons like long sword, two handed sword and halberd. It gave the fighter one more slight advantage in combat.
Later, setting specific mythos started to be developed. When the 2E core books were first released they even suggested clerics of certain priesthoods might have different weapon restrictions. In fact, Druids were presented as AN EXAMPLE of how clerics of a different religion might have different abilities and restrictions. Later Forgotten Realms (and other settings) supplements included specialty priests of a variety of different deities. SOME of this carries over into BG2 with the cleric kits. But rather than incorporate all the different changes of all the different priesthoods, they just left the vanilla cleric pretty much like the vanilla class from the core rules. Vanilla cleric sort of remains as a legacy class. No PNP game I play in using 2E rules (I've played in a dozen or more such campaigns) actually uses vanilla cleric at all. I've played clerics who wield swords or bows; and I've played clerics who were only allowed daggers and slings. Every DM sets this stuff up however they want. But the Bioware "DM" says we use the vanilla cleric. C'est la vie.
@ atcDave Thanks for the refresher, tying in MA church law may very well indeed have been his early inspiration for the cleric class. Back then they pretty much had one kind of deity for clerics to represent and it was more or less good. When they did expand upon the rules, they should have kicked the door off the hinges right away. In time they got it right, different cultures for different beliefs. For the DM to suggest that all clerics of all religions must obey some kind of unified church law is rather silly, even in a fantasy land. Can you even imagine a time when ALL RELIGIONS around this entire planet, will band together and agree on, well...anything? But don't tell the DM I said that, okay? :>
Don't forget to mention that the paladin was the happy medium for quite sometime. Full spell use, every kind of armor, and every kind of weapon is a bit too overpowering. A restricted list of usable weapons is very practical for any cleric class.
Also, I'd like to suggest the idea of each religion being able to summon their deities favored weapon instead of the same kinds for all of them.
Well a problem with "kicking the door off the hinges" is just how incremental the changes were. First the core rules for D&D, then 1E came out. Then some pretty tentative stuff involving religions and different mythologies was published. And of course doing away with a rule does require some thought about balance issues. An early first step (I think this even started in some 1E games? Its been a while, I'm not sure) was just allowing one "favored" weapon for each priesthood. So even if the other core restrictions were in place, a Cleric of Poseidon could use a trident; things like that. I still know some players who grumble at me allowing Clerics of Apollo in my game to use bows; like its a "balance" problem. Seriously? They can't specialize like a warrior! I see no balance problem. But a change from convention does require some thought and explanation.
For me, as a DM, 2E core rules were liberating. Not because of the vanilla cleric class, that was almost unchanged from 1E. But because they did provide guidelines for creating completely re-imagined specialty clerics of every priesthood. I now even require Paladins to follow all the Cleric restrictions of their religion. No balance problems at all, and I love the atmosphere it adds.
Although I would add, from a pure story telling perspective, I could imagine a setting where every priesthood of every religion has to follow the same weapons restrictions. It could be a very meta-physical sort of thing. Part of the universal mystery of how divine magic works. You could maybe say in some universe, every cleric of every religion has to eat pomegranate for breakfast or their spells simply won't work for the day. Its weird, but it might make for a fun universe where fruit end up having cosmic significance. Well, by the same measure, you could say in some universe every cleric, of every religion, must wear chain mail armor and use clubs hacked from sycamore trees as their melee weapons. A DM/story teller CAN make up whatever universal guidelines for these things they want to, as long as the players are willing to go along with it, and rules/restrictions are fairly applied. In my experience, DMs with really odd ideas may run games that are fun for four or five sessions, but eventually too much quirky oddness gets tiring unless justifications are clear. Which leads back to weapon restrictions in 2E. I do think its best if they are tailored to match the portfolio of the patron deity. But in the right circumstance I can play along with most anything. And for BG it just helps me a lot knowing the history of how we got here.
As mentioned, no rule seems to be purely arbitrary. Most can be traced back to an historical basis and perhaps no literary work was more important than LOTR as the precedent for a huge part of the foundational framework.
Multi and dual classing take care of anyone who find the limitations of one pure class too restrictive.
I love these covers. I used to own copies years ago.
When you attack, even with a weapon you have never used before, there's always a 5% chance that you will strike perfectly on the first try. Because it's realistic.
What's worse, even if you're a master swordsman with hundreds of hours of combat under your belt, there's still a 5% chance that you screw up horribly.
The 5% success/failure chance is probably what I hate the most about 2nd edition. If we applied that sort of system to real life, nobody working in an even remotely dangerous job(i.e. construction workers) would live past 30.
Oh c'mon. Its not like a natural "1" is always fatal. In the core rules it only means a sure miss. And a natural "20" only means a sure hit. Neither event is guaranteed to be disastrous or epic.
Any rules involving critical hits or fumbles are optional; usually house rules not even drawn from any of the published books. BG merely uses double damage, and a sure miss. This is NOT a big deal.
With hits from fighters ranging from 20-40% of a characters health, a double-damage hit or double-delay miss can certainly have a very significant effect on a combat.
That being said, I don't really like to-hit as a thing in BG or games in general anyway.
But those are not fair complaints of 2E, they aren't a part of the core rules. They are add ons, house rules, used for BG. You can object to them in BG, but they are not really a part of 2E.
grandmastery with a weapon equals to perfection in it's use,only fighters obtain it because only fighters are 'one-sided' enough as to neglect everything else than honing their combat skills,paladins you mentioned are also delving into worship,divine magic and many duties that prevent them from training all day long,but they're still competent warriors,hence specialists but not grandmasters.
mages are physically weak and casting is physically demanding enough without them being ironclad,also be reasonable wouldn't it be gamebreaking if mages wore full plate with no drawback?
rangers,what's the problem with the free proficiencies? it suits them quite fine,small blades suit the woodsman concept and it makes sense to get a dagger in the left to parry at least
clerics...that's taken directly from the real world,in the medieval times man of faith often participated in battles and indeed they had vows to not shed blood and wielded maces instead of swords
I think atmosphere is at least as important as game balance. And no armor for mages strikes me as a very atmospheric decision. I like it, but I'm not outraged or anything if any DM wants to have a different house rule. But core 2E will take a fantasy image like Gandolf or Raistlin as its prototype for a mage and not allow armor. BG is set in the Forgotten Realms which very much follows this image of the mage wearing robes, but no armor.
For clerics, the blunt weapon restriction is also partly about atmosphere, and partly about game balance. But as always, be very careful about citing historic precedence. One of the major medieval influences on the modern fantasy/romance epic is the "Chansons de Geste" This is actual medieval fantasy stories based on Charlemagne's Paladins. One of the main characters is a cleric (Archbishop Turpin) who uses sword and lance as his favorite weapons. My point just being that the Middle Ages are long period of history (Usually considered to be 1000 years if we start with the Dark Ages and continue to the Renaissance) and its hard to characterize any law as typical of the period. The restriction on Cleric weapons is actually hard to pin down. Although 19th century writers made reference to it, there are few medieval sources that mention it. Although to be fair, the first 500 years, the "Dark Ages", are considered dark because so little was written during that time. So was it a real law? Maybe. It was also against Church law to use a crossbow against a fellow christian. That could make for a fun game implementation. Maybe, Clerics and Paladins can only use crossbows against non-humans or something? Fertile ground for ideas.
Just to add to what @atcDave said about the clerics, I've looked up and read quite a bit about the history of it. AtcDave and I once had a rather lengthy discussion about it in another thread that brought this up, and I bow to his superior historical knowledge if I say anything wrong.
But, what I can find on the subject says that Gary Gygax (the original founder and author of the D&D gaming system), made up the cleric-blunt-weapon rule just to balance them at a d6 of damage against the fighters, who got a d8 longsword.
Also, blunt weapons draw just as much or more blood than sharp weapons, so the whole "not drawing blood" thing is kind of silly. It's possible but not definite that some medieval orders of Christianity used that idea as a loophole so that Christians could still fight.
There is also a famous tapestry of Charlemagne where the archbishop is depicted as fighting with a mace. Some sources believe that that famous image started a traditional association of clerics with blunt weapons combat.
Then there's Robin Hood's Friar Tuck with his quarterstaff association, although I'm told that the original literature depicted Friar Tuck using bladed weapons as well.
There are several traditions, I believe, of stories and images associated with the English legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that started a traditional image of clerics using blunt weapons.
The conclusions from all of those sources are very arguable. I am very interested in this "clerics must use blunt weapons" thing, and honestly, the answer I've read that I find the most satisfying is that Gary Gygax made it up as a balance rule during the 1970's, and the whole idea stuck, culturally.
I would only emphasize Belgarathmth that there IS some historic justification for the blunt weapons rule. But its sort of an obscure, almost mythic sort of thing. You nicely cite many of the sources that suggest it.
But I'm certain Gygax added the rule as a balance thing. A balance thing with just a hint of medieval "mood" to it.
I like my ale cold,wizard hats pointy and D&D in 2nd Ed.
I feel the black and white shades 2nd ed paints with fit (video game version of-) Faerun finely. Later editions introduced a dungheap of new features that never really brought anything meaningful with them. At least not within borders Infinity Engine sets.
In Infinity engine DnD, I wager people generally enjoy being something..iconic and profilic. Wizard in pointy hat vs some blurred impossible-to-identify lvl 2 Warrior/lvl 3 thief/ lvls 1 Wizard /1 lvl cleric - thing.
you got something against Elminster? He's legit by the way, his lower then allowed str is due to having the middle age category penalties which came long after he dualed away from fighter.
I like my ale cold,wizard hats pointy and D&D in 2nd Ed.
I feel the black and white shades 2nd ed paints with fit (video game version of-) Faerun finely. Later editions introduced a dungheap of new features that never really brought anything meaningful with them. At least not within borders Infinity Engine sets.
In Infinity engine DnD, I wager people generally enjoy being something..iconic and profilic. Wizard in pointy hat vs some blurred impossible-to-identify lvl 2 Warrior/lvl 3 thief/ lvls 1 Wizard /1 lvl cleric - thing.
My favorite gaming system is the james Bond 007 Role Playing Game from like 1984. It's really nothing more than a multiplication table. The GM decides how difficult the task is on a scale of 1 to 10, and that is cross referenced with the skill pertaining to that task. You roll, and if you succeed, you use another chart to see how well you did. If you had a %50 chance to succeed, the quality of the success would range from 1 (10% or under) to a 5 (41%-50%). The quality rating was pretty much how much damage you did or how convincing a disguise you made for yourself, etc.. I used to take those rules and play DnD with them.
I liked it because as a DM, you really didn't have to weigh in a great deal of pluses and minuses when determining difficulty. The game flowed fast and freely, and players could state their case and try to sway the DR a rank or two.
Other than that I grew up on 2nd ed and I always looked forf ard to new material for it.
I would only emphasize Belgarathmth that there IS some historic justification for the blunt weapons rule. But its sort of an obscure, almost mythic sort of thing. You nicely cite many of the sources that suggest it.
But I'm certain Gygax added the rule as a balance thing. A balance thing with just a hint of medieval "mood" to it.
Which goes out the window somewhat when you introduce the specialty priests into the equation. i know I've said elsewhere it would have been interesting of the cleric class allowed the specialties but considering it further they would (potentially) make the game horribly unbalanced. Think about it, a PC cleric of Helm with the Bulwark specialty would mean you'd get a priest with the benefits of all their spells and the ability to wield weapons like Carsomyr! O_O. That said, it might have been an interesting option for Anomen's character.
Comments
Multi and dual classing take care of anyone who find the limitations of one pure class too restrictive.
Ooh, I have a another question: how do sorcerers choose spells? Do they hear some divine, demonic or draconic voice in their heads, "press 1 for Agannazar's Scorcher", or do they just randomly appear. In crpg's you can choose, and I suppose in PnP you have to roll a die, but is it random or do you have to make a certain roll to get what you chose?
Sorcerers can choose their spells in P&P. Their magic is a manifestation of their own willpower, personality, and ingenuity. They don't necessarily choose intentionally, but they mentally picture the effects they want to achieve and it usually just happens in a way that a wizard would recognize as a particular spell.
In order to master a new class quickly (magecraft normally takes 12-16 years before you can master a single cantrip), you must focus on using magic to the exclusion of all else, the same for other professions, to learn the crucial skills as quickly as possible (it's also why the stat requirements are much higher....unless you're exceptionally skilled, it would take years of constant practice to even learn the skills needed to be level 1). You don't actually lose your old abilities, but using them during an encounter causes you to gain no xp for that encounter, because you're relying on your old skills, instead of learning how to better use your current ones, and thus you learned nothing from that encounter.
It's only once you've surpassed your previous abilities in proficieny, that you can begin to meld your combat styles together without interfering with your new path of study.
Fighters, mages, clerics, and thieves, all have different fighting styles, and learning to use their unique styles forces you to change how you fight, resulting in a different hit chance.
Humans are considered far too flighty to have the disipline to master multiple classes at once, which is why demi-humans can multi-class and Humans abandon a class and begin another (up to one from each class pool, if they have the stats for it).
(Your HP and Saves bonuses aren't lost when you dual-class).
Mythos priest, cleric particularly devoted to a specific Diety, have different equipment and spellcasting rules, totally up to the whims of their gods. Less devoted clerics are generic and just follow some common traditional oaths, but without the rabid devotion to their god's creed that a Mythos priest has. (Technically, Clerics of Talos cannot cast any healing spells...only reversed inflict versions, and gain greater access to the weather sphere, allowing them to call down lightning or use other natural forces of destruction. And clerics of Helm should be able to use any weapons a fighter could, but only get divination, protection, battle, and lesser healing spheres))
Sorcerer spells are bursts of inspiration due to their natural talent to wield the weave, that the sorcerer then forms loosely over time into a given spell....and technically...in PnP at least, can even break down and reform spells into new spells (but only when gaining a new level, only 1 spell per level up, and it must be at least 1 level lower then the highest level they can cast), representing their more chaotic mastery of magic, vs the more stable craft used by Wizards. They can also learn custom spells (normal handbook spells are common enough that they can simply pick them without needing scrolls) from scrolls at level up without having to do spell research to learn it, if it's the same level as the new spell they can choose from and they have room in their known spells (can also be used for the trade-out thing mentioned above).
The 2nd edition sorcerer (from Netheril), could learn 1 new spell at each level up naturally, up to their highest cast-able level (similar to a specialist, but without restricting it to a specific school), and also learn new spells from scrolls...but unlike mages who could learn as many spells as they wanted since they scribed them into spellbooks, which they could have dozens of, and memorized them by reading from the books, sorcerers had a hard limit on the number of each spells they could know at each spell-level based on their intelligence and couldn't forget spells that weren't very useful to make further room.
I don't know if it is compatible with BGEE.
Here's why.
1. It's the ONE THING that all non-druid religions agree on. A priest of Bane wont pick up a sword to kill a priest of Sune. "Whao, what kind of evil God worshipping maniac do you think I am?!. When we sacrifice people, we shatter their ribs and watch them suffocate. Like civilized folk.".
2. The reason as it's been described to me...is that they don't like bloodshed. Blunt weapons don't draw blood?!?
3. Their Gods, that they WORSHIP. Grant them bladed weapons. They allow them all to magically produce a flaming sword to use to stab and slash people. It's like a parent trying to get a baby to eat vegetables. "Listen, you can't go through life using nothing but blunt weapons. It's cute, that you are into that. But please just TRY the bladed weapon. Look, I'll even make it engulfed in flame for you. You're now the envy of every warrior. Oh by the way, my Holy Symbol is a bladed weapon. So...yeah it's OK to draw some blood. I mean I became a God by drawing lots of blood all the time! It's O...K..."
In the original D&D, even before 1E, the setting and idea was derived from medieval European fantasy. During part of the middle ages, Church law prohibited clergy from using edged weapons. Well it just so happened this nicely helped with game balance; in those early days, there were no weapon proficiencies or specialization or anything. So the only things separating a cleric from a warrior in melee were d8 hit dice, and a slightly inferior thac0 (actually attack table, thac0 hadn't been conceived yet). So if the cleric was restricted from blades, they couldn't use the very best melee weapons like long sword, two handed sword and halberd. It gave the fighter one more slight advantage in combat.
Later, setting specific mythos started to be developed. When the 2E core books were first released they even suggested clerics of certain priesthoods might have different weapon restrictions. In fact, Druids were presented as AN EXAMPLE of how clerics of a different religion might have different abilities and restrictions.
Later Forgotten Realms (and other settings) supplements included specialty priests of a variety of different deities. SOME of this carries over into BG2 with the cleric kits. But rather than incorporate all the different changes of all the different priesthoods, they just left the vanilla cleric pretty much like the vanilla class from the core rules.
Vanilla cleric sort of remains as a legacy class. No PNP game I play in using 2E rules (I've played in a dozen or more such campaigns) actually uses vanilla cleric at all. I've played clerics who wield swords or bows; and I've played clerics who were only allowed daggers and slings. Every DM sets this stuff up however they want. But the Bioware "DM" says we use the vanilla cleric. C'est la vie.
Don't forget to mention that the paladin was the happy medium for quite sometime. Full spell use, every kind of armor, and every kind of weapon is a bit too overpowering. A restricted list of usable weapons is very practical for any cleric class.
Also, I'd like to suggest the idea of each religion being able to summon their deities favored weapon instead of the same kinds for all of them.
I still know some players who grumble at me allowing Clerics of Apollo in my game to use bows; like its a "balance" problem. Seriously? They can't specialize like a warrior! I see no balance problem. But a change from convention does require some thought and explanation.
For me, as a DM, 2E core rules were liberating. Not because of the vanilla cleric class, that was almost unchanged from 1E. But because they did provide guidelines for creating completely re-imagined specialty clerics of every priesthood. I now even require Paladins to follow all the Cleric restrictions of their religion. No balance problems at all, and I love the atmosphere it adds.
Although I would add, from a pure story telling perspective, I could imagine a setting where every priesthood of every religion has to follow the same weapons restrictions.
It could be a very meta-physical sort of thing. Part of the universal mystery of how divine magic works. You could maybe say in some universe, every cleric of every religion has to eat pomegranate for breakfast or their spells simply won't work for the day. Its weird, but it might make for a fun universe where fruit end up having cosmic significance. Well, by the same measure, you could say in some universe every cleric, of every religion, must wear chain mail armor and use clubs hacked from sycamore trees as their melee weapons. A DM/story teller CAN make up whatever universal guidelines for these things they want to, as long as the players are willing to go along with it, and rules/restrictions are fairly applied. In my experience, DMs with really odd ideas may run games that are fun for four or five sessions, but eventually too much quirky oddness gets tiring unless justifications are clear.
Which leads back to weapon restrictions in 2E. I do think its best if they are tailored to match the portfolio of the patron deity. But in the right circumstance I can play along with most anything. And for BG it just helps me a lot knowing the history of how we got here.
The 5% success/failure chance is probably what I hate the most about 2nd edition. If we applied that sort of system to real life, nobody working in an even remotely dangerous job(i.e. construction workers) would live past 30.
Any rules involving critical hits or fumbles are optional; usually house rules not even drawn from any of the published books. BG merely uses double damage, and a sure miss. This is NOT a big deal.
That being said, I don't really like to-hit as a thing in BG or games in general anyway.
mages are physically weak and casting is physically demanding enough without them being ironclad,also be reasonable wouldn't it be gamebreaking if mages wore full plate with no drawback?
rangers,what's the problem with the free proficiencies? it suits them quite fine,small blades suit the woodsman concept and it makes sense to get a dagger in the left to parry at least
clerics...that's taken directly from the real world,in the medieval times man of faith often participated in battles and indeed they had vows to not shed blood and wielded maces instead of swords
For clerics, the blunt weapon restriction is also partly about atmosphere, and partly about game balance. But as always, be very careful about citing historic precedence. One of the major medieval influences on the modern fantasy/romance epic is the "Chansons de Geste" This is actual medieval fantasy stories based on Charlemagne's Paladins. One of the main characters is a cleric (Archbishop Turpin) who uses sword and lance as his favorite weapons.
My point just being that the Middle Ages are long period of history (Usually considered to be 1000 years if we start with the Dark Ages and continue to the Renaissance) and its hard to characterize any law as typical of the period. The restriction on Cleric weapons is actually hard to pin down. Although 19th century writers made reference to it, there are few medieval sources that mention it. Although to be fair, the first 500 years, the "Dark Ages", are considered dark because so little was written during that time. So was it a real law? Maybe.
It was also against Church law to use a crossbow against a fellow christian. That could make for a fun game implementation. Maybe, Clerics and Paladins can only use crossbows against non-humans or something? Fertile ground for ideas.
But, what I can find on the subject says that Gary Gygax (the original founder and author of the D&D gaming system), made up the cleric-blunt-weapon rule just to balance them at a d6 of damage against the fighters, who got a d8 longsword.
Also, blunt weapons draw just as much or more blood than sharp weapons, so the whole "not drawing blood" thing is kind of silly. It's possible but not definite that some medieval orders of Christianity used that idea as a loophole so that Christians could still fight.
There is also a famous tapestry of Charlemagne where the archbishop is depicted as fighting with a mace. Some sources believe that that famous image started a traditional association of clerics with blunt weapons combat.
Then there's Robin Hood's Friar Tuck with his quarterstaff association, although I'm told that the original literature depicted Friar Tuck using bladed weapons as well.
There are several traditions, I believe, of stories and images associated with the English legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that started a traditional image of clerics using blunt weapons.
The conclusions from all of those sources are very arguable. I am very interested in this "clerics must use blunt weapons" thing, and honestly, the answer I've read that I find the most satisfying is that Gary Gygax made it up as a balance rule during the 1970's, and the whole idea stuck, culturally.
But I'm certain Gygax added the rule as a balance thing. A balance thing with just a hint of medieval "mood" to it.
I feel the black and white shades 2nd ed paints with fit (video game version of-) Faerun finely. Later editions introduced a dungheap of new features that never really brought anything meaningful with them. At least not within borders Infinity Engine sets.
In Infinity engine DnD, I wager people generally enjoy being something..iconic and profilic. Wizard in pointy hat vs some blurred impossible-to-identify lvl 2 Warrior/lvl 3 thief/ lvls 1 Wizard /1 lvl cleric - thing.
I liked it because as a DM, you really didn't have to weigh in a great deal of pluses and minuses when determining difficulty. The game flowed fast and freely, and players could state their case and try to sway the DR a rank or two.
Other than that I grew up on 2nd ed and I always looked forf ard to new material for it.