That actually came up during one of the arguments and he said that there shouldn't be a mobility/dex penalty. He showed this YouTube video of a guy doing cartwheels and sprinting in full plate.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qzTwBQniLSc
And when the topic of weight came up, his argument was it shouldn't encumber him in any way because it's evenly distributed.
I think this is what bothers me the most. He is all multiple bullshit stereotypes in one, and he's not even good at being any of them.
I mean you get a Football linebacker, 350lbs of muscle in a peak performance wrapping in their prime who trains 8 hours a day 5 days a week, especially with modern metallurgy doing the metal, and yeah he can do all his drills and sprints if there's enough mobility in the armor design. Linebackers usually put on weighted vests to train and most of those are more than 50lbs. But he's not going to be able to keep it up all day every day. For example, notice that the guy sprinting through the woods is going in a straight line - love see see that guy do an agility course.
I had a munchkin player bitching about 4e's (admittedly fairly harsh at lower levels) Jump tables and how it did encumbrance.
(No light/medium/heavy, just 'not encumbered/encumbered/cannot move' - encumbered meaning you have no hands free (can't weild weapons/implements) and are slowed (10foot move speed + some attacks do shit to you), and also mad dwarves only got to move full speed when encumbered, hands were still counted as full, because he had picked dwarf to cheese the system like he did in PF) and mentioned French Canadian fur traders were expected during portage to carry two 90lbs bundles and some carried 5, as well as a canoe and survival gear.
And I pointed out that those guys were trudging through the woods - not jumping alleyways, sprinting, doing sick backflips, or trying to not get stabbed by goblins. There's a difference between what a human can do, and what I human can do all day, day in and day out. There's no exhaustion checks, there's no long term injury checks, there's no herniated disk checks. Accept that there is some give and take in abstracting these things, and your character is giving up some of their peak performance to not completely destroy themselves.
I want to add in some shit about nutrition and water requirements, but i'm just flogging a dead horse at that point.
It sounds like your guy wants a historic experience like a reenactment and dnd keeps cockblocking him.
I don't think he actually wants a historic reenactment, he's cherry picking examples to justify his Munchkining. Otherwise he'd be taking his failed will saves in stride.
I put the blame for that on the increasing difficulty of killing D&D characters in any reasonable way. When you are all but completely assured by the system that your character is going to survive anything, even the most retarded character concept or "lore-based" action starts sounding reasonable.
I'm not advocating for a return to AD&D's a Save vs. Death behind every blade of grass philosophy, but there's got to be a good middle ground.
Agreed. I really dislike save v. death, but 4e (and really 3e) on just made PCs nigh unkillable demi-gods, unless you do bullshit like have the monsters just full-auto damage-dump the first Mofo through the door, which just isn't fun for anyone really.
But in 1/2AD&D its too easy to kill PCs via bullshit. And B/X makes it so there's almost no point in getting invested in your character and unless you are just doing generic "Ye Olde Fantasy Roleplay" renfaire talk, there's almost no point in trying to roleplay because of how easily they'll get wiped and you'll have a new character.
Its why I never do stat rolls for anything 3+e (including PF). You're expected to have your character for too long that a bad roll will hobble you and good one just makes you OP and then pissed off when they die and the replacement isn't as good.
D&D is ridiculously abstracted. Most people don't pay attention to it, but it distills 6 seconds of chaotic back-and-forth in melee into a single d20 roll for every character involved. Doing literally anything else requires a special rule, class feature or feat.
That attack roll could be a single well-executed and precise attack with a saber after studying the enemy's patterns for a few seconds. Or it could be a wild and furious sequence of strikes with a greatsword. Or a devastating counter after deflecting a blow with your shield. Or a sequence of probing attacks with a shortsword and parrying dagger. Meanwhile, you missing could be because the opponent dodged, blocked or parried, or you outright missed, or you hit and your weapon skipped off their armor, or you hit and only clipped their clothes/hair, or you hit the other guy square-on and they just didn't feel it. And even if you hit, subtracting from the enemy's HP could be a flesh wound, a hit that leaves them slightly winded, a near miss/parry/block that rattles them, an effortful evasion that leaves them tired, or anything that would eventually reduce the enemy's ability to avoid crippling damage (read: the hit that takes them to 0 HP).
That is a lot of shit that needs to be filled in by descriptions and imagination. It's not a simulationalist system, it's not meant to be a simulationist system, and it actively resents you if you try to turn it into a simulation. Anyone who wants something with 1-second turns, where every maneuver is accounted for, go play fucking GURPS.
I think pre-3 systems of having combat rounds be a minute did this abstraction better instead of the 6-second turns from 3e on, where the attack roll its not a single blow, its the result minute of parrying and thrusting. That 1d8 damage could represent one lucky blow, or the result of several less grievous strikes.
