I hear quite a lot a party needs X, Y, an arcane and a divine. But why? What would the difference be between having arcane and divine, or divine and divine or arcane and arcane?
Divine is traditionally where healing spells are, while arcane tends to have more damage and utility spells. There are arcane casters with healing though, so if that's the angle divine isn't needed.
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When you have a Fighter Thief Mage and Cleric....or as they are now called Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, Cleric in your party you have the "basics" covered.
The fighter can directly engage a monster, both dealing out steady significant damage, and he is able to endure a monster's physical attacks; with armor deflecting many of the blows, and with those blows that land, the fighter's hit points enable him to stay in the fight.
The Rogue's skill set can provide scouting, disarming traps, social negotiation, etc, and he can position himself so he can back stab, or "sneak attack" as it is now called to cause extra damage and further wear down the monster.
The Wizard can use his magic to deal deal direct damage via spells like magic missle etc, provide utility like the fly spell, provide now what is it called now? Battlefield control ? to take specific enemies out of the fight by putting them to sleep/ dropping them in a pit/ Walling them off with a wall of fire spell etc and provide party "buffing" with spells like cats grace bull strength etc..
The cleric can with his divine magic can provide "buffing" for the party with bull strength bless prayer etc. The cleric also provides excellent healing via the cure spells, and the cleric also can cast such spells as cure disease, cure blindness, restoration, regeneration, raise dead etc, to help the party out when bad things happen to their characters. They also have Channel positive energy which allows for healing in a 30' burst, and can damage undead and evil outsiders with the right feats. The cleric, with their D8 hit points, +1/3 Base Attack bonus, Medium Armor, Favored Weapon, the ability to cast spells in armor and "Buffing" spells can wade into combat along side of the fighter and at times surpass the fighter.
I know this is an over simplification of things, and not a direct answer to your question, but it helps to see how Arcane and Devine magic is used by their wielders in a party to see what they are traditionally used for.
One final note, with these four basic "food groups" covered your party should be able to handle just about everything the GM throws at you. You won't need to compensate. for the lack of a skill set.
Mechanically, the main difference between the two is Arcane Spell Failure. Past that, it's just a matter of what spells are on your class list (and even moreso, which spells you choose).
The arcane and divine classes are similar but do have a few mechanical differences.
1) Arcane classes suffer from Arcane Spell Failure chance when wearing armour.
2) Arcane casters need 8 hours of rest, Divine casters need to pray at a preset time each day.
3) Arcane casters only get a limited number of spells off the list, such as whatever a wizard has in their spellbook or a sorcerer's spells known. Divine casters get access to every single spell on their classes list in every single book that you use in your game.
4) Each class has a different spell-list which mostly run along different themes.
The arcane and divine classes are similar but do have a few mechanical differences.
1) Arcane classes suffer from Arcane Spell Failure chance when wearing armour.
2) Arcane casters need 8 hours of rest, Divine casters need to pray at a preset time each day.
3) Arcane casters only get a limited number of spells off the list, such as whatever a wizard has in their spellbook or a sorcerer's spells known. Divine casters get access to every single spell on their classes list in every single book that you use in your game.
4) Each class has a different spell-list which mostly run along different themes.
But off course there are exceptions to most of those. . .
1. Bards can wear Light armor and still cast even though they are arcane-- and they have Healing spell3. Warmages from 3.5 knew all warmage spells, while there was a divine caster that went off Int that had limited spells known
4. ^^ the spell lists are what really determine what role your character can/will play in the campaign-- its the most important difference between the classes
The other main difference is "thematic" not mechanical in that Divine casters get their spells from an outside source (a god, or nature, ect) whereas divine casters have their spells through study or inherent bloodline.
This of course leads the mechanical difference of casting stat-- Arcane usually use INt or Cha whereas Divine primarily use Wis (though some use Cha I believe).
Broad strokes: divine spellcasters do a good bit of healing and buffing. They can be very "reactive": they use their magic after things have started (healing). As noted above, they recover their spells at a preset time each day. No arcane spell failure. Arcane spellcasters have more utility magic and better blasting. They need 8 hours of rest to get their spells back.
Finer strokes: look at the spell list of a given class. The sorcerer/wizard list covers about everything (though healing is scarce). The druid list has more battlefield control than the cleric list. Bards heal and buff, don't blast so well. And so on.
Ah I understand now. Thanks a lot, everyone!