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“i20 Light” – The Compromise
The i20 ruleset is an adaptation of d20 2014 PHB that re-balances and adds mechanics to reflect the specific mechanics and flavor for the particular Gritty Realism sought by the designers. There are key elements of all of this that play testing has show are both preferred almost universally, and easily adopted without introducing too much to the base d20 system as it is. This will be referred to as “i20 Light.”
Particularly the elements of cost of armor & maintenance, an increased level of lethality, dynamic combat using Resilience of items with a scaled result that emphasizes quality over randomness. Its enough to emphasize elements of the particular flavor of Gritty Realism desired, without it being as cumbersome as rewriting the fundamental elements to be more integrated and game-balanced with them.
- Hit dice at first level is average, not full.
- Essence is used attunement and bindings.
- Use of Resilience for armaments.
- Scaled result of DC/DC+5/natural 20 = average damage/full damage/double full (weapon) or 150% full (spell)
- I20 Light also typically follows the Best Practice guidelines for a starting character.
- Marked Drawbacks from i20 Characters
- No access to the enhanced class and race capabilities that integrate into the full i20 versions.
- Gets no character points to improve in between levels or the CP adoption benefit (mostly knowledge) in the character class archetypes.
- Doesn’t get access to cultural experiences.
- D20 has a flat and broad skill system with things like “History”, catching everything. The DC for all BROAD checks and anything of knowledge or lore base will be higher.
Flavorings (not mechanics) & RP Hooks
Tutelage & Obligations; Patrons, trainer, clergy, master-apprentice, etc. especially for mystical empowerment. Multi-classing is not just “taking your next level as X”.