the cleric's restriction on blunt weapons goes all the way back to DnD basic and ADnD 1st edition. Until recent editions, that did not change even with racial preferences.
It does, yes - I understand that better than most, in fact. It harkens back to a time where the mechanical class 'Cleric' was designed on a particular archetype and envisioning of what a cleric was, and imagined it purely as that armour-wearing, mace-wielding, undead-turning healer... despite the fact that that was only
Actually appropriate for a very limited select set of deities, and completely inappropriate for many, many others. Surprise surprise, in more recent editions, it's been realised that that old stereotype based on one very particular type of cleric, was not actually appropriate at all as any sort of fixed rule or mechanical restriction, and the concept was wholesale abandoned in favour of giving clerics a simple range of basic proficiencies and placing no restrictions whatsoever on them in terms of what kinds of equipment they choose to use - because people and deities are so varied that the 'idea' of the armour-wearing, mace-wielding, undead-turning healer as being solely synonymous with cleric, and nothing else being permitted, was, in fact, damaging to the game as a whole and players' ability to explore creatively within it.
So let's
Not go back to trying to enforce that unfitting and inappropriate forced stereotype on newer players as a matter of course, okay?
Anyway, I've spoken my piece on that; I'm off topic, and getting caught up in it further is not going to help anyone else, so I'll stop here and I won't pursue the debate any further. Sorry if I came off aggressively.
