Band of Blades vs Pathfinder

Compare Band of Blades and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Band of Blades	Pathfinder
Genre	Fantasy, Horror	Fantasy
Play Style	Narrative, Fiction-First, Playbook-Driven, Dark Fantasy, Grimdark, Horror, Mission-Based, Faction Play, Combat-Heavy, Deadly, Survival, Tactical, Resource Management, GM-Friendly	Tactical, Crunchy, Combat-Heavy, Character Building, Dungeon Crawl, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Heroic, Ascending AC, Exploration, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Forged in the Dark — roll a d6 dice pool equal to your action rating and read the highest die: 6 is a full success, 4–5 is a partial success with consequences, 1–3 is a bad outcome. Position (controlled, risky, desperate) sets the stakes, and players spend stress to resist consequences. Play alternates between a mission phase (specialists and rank-and-file Legionnaires execute one primary and one secondary mission) and a campaign phase, where each player runs a permanent Legion Role — Commander, Marshal, Quartermaster, Spymaster, or Lorekeeper — making strategic decisions about routes, supply, intel, and personnel as the army retreats toward Skydagger Keep.	Roll d20 + modifier against a DC. Four degrees of success: critical success (beat DC by 10+), success, failure, and critical failure (miss by 10+). Each turn grants three actions to spend freely on strikes, movement, spellcasting, or other activities. Multi-attack penalty (-5/-10) discourages repeated strikes and encourages tactical variety.
Dice	d6 dice pool	d20
Complexity	High	High
Accessibility	Medium	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	Forged in the Dark	ORC
Cost	$$	Free (ORC)
Publisher	Evil Hat Productions / Off Guard Games	Paizo
Year	2019	2023
Best For	Groups who want a campaign-length military fantasy where the Legion as a whole is the protagonist — character death is expected, players cycle through different soldiers each mission, and strategic decisions about routes, supply, and intel are split across the table rather than held by the GM.	Groups who want deep character customization, tactical grid combat with meaningful turn-by-turn decisions, and a richly detailed fantasy setting with free rules.
Highlights	Players rotate through Specialist, Soldier, and Rookie playbooks across missions rather than playing fixed characters, so attrition lands without ending personal arcs — the Legion endures even when individual soldiers fall. Each player also holds a permanent Legion Role that drives the campaign phase, splitting army-management decisions across the table instead of leaving them with the GM. Time and Pressure clocks turn the campaign into a race against the Cinder King — advancing toward Skydagger Keep burns time, but lingering builds undead pressure that escalates the difficulty and lethality of future missions.	Complete rules available free on Archives of Nethys. Three-action economy gives every turn meaningful tactical decisions. Character customization through ancestry feats, class feats, skill feats, and general feats at every level. Four degrees of success on every roll add granularity to outcomes.
Considerations	The campaign phase (mission generation, spy deployments, supply, advance roll, Lorekeeper annals) takes substantial time between missions and only works if every player engages with their Role. Building a deep personal arc for a single Legionnaire is structurally difficult because characters rotate between missions — emotional investment lives with the Legion rather than any one soldier. The campaign is built around a single fixed arc ending at Skydagger Keep, with a defined map, locations, and Chosen/Broken roster — there is no open-ended sandbox mode, and a full campaign runs 12–20 sessions.	New players must learn the trait system, conditions, and four degrees of success before combat runs smoothly. Multi-attack penalty and numerous combat actions can slow turns for indecisive players. Character creation requires selecting feats from multiple categories at every level, which can overwhelm new players.