Quote Originally Posted by SiuiS View Post
The thing is, you had no build options, but that doesn't mean no character depth. The system clearly set up what being a wizard is and means, and how they fit into life and society. Choosing a wizard means you picked that up and were expected to follow through; you were a scholar and an experimenter, a field engineer, a technician and expert. You were part of a secretive tradition much like the tropes behind the Freemasons, with pass codes and expectations, a pseudo society of trading in corpses and secrets, political espionage to learn without paying, finding and training an apprentice and being held accountable for your dynasty, blamed for your mentor's failings and your apprentice's hot headedness at the same time. You had depth. You had a place.

Wizards were not just spell books, any more than a thief guild master wasn't just a set of lock picks. It just happened that those picks (or that book) are what you were hired for on this expedition, but what you got out of it was field testing, components for spells and experimentation, funding, social advancement, a good CV.
Of course. But I think when looking only on the purely mechanical differences between wizards and clerics, it still stands. Of course you can greatly expand the background of the character to represent all kinds of quite different people. But my point is that this is something that exist separate from the mechanical differences of wizards and clerics. You don't need two separate classes to represent two different types of spellcasting characters. This could be done entirely in spell selection and backstory.
Apart from spells, the difference between wizards and clerics are weapons, armor, and turn undead. If you compare a cleric to a fighter/wizard, it's really just the spells.