Barbarians of Lemuria vs Dungeons & Dragons
Compare Barbarians of Lemuria and Dungeons & Dragons side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Barbarians of Lemuria | Dungeons & Dragons | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Rules-Light, Pulp Action, Sword & Sorcery, Beginner-Friendly, Fast-Paced | Tactical, Heroic, Dungeon Crawl, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Beginner-Friendly, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy, Ascending AC |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + attribute + career (or combat ability), 9+ to succeed. Four attributes (Strength, Agility, Mind, Appeal) and four combat abilities (Initiative, Melee, Ranged, Defence) rated 0–5. Careers replace individual skills: if your career is relevant, add its rating. Boons roll 3d6 keep best two; flaws roll 3d6 keep worst two. Hero Points fuel dramatic escapes and heroic feats. | Roll d20 + modifier against a target DC (for ability checks and saving throws) or AC (for attacks). Meeting or exceeding the target succeeds. Advantage rolls 2d20 and takes the higher; disadvantage takes the lower, replacing most situational modifiers. |
| Dice | 2d6 | d20 |
| Complexity | Low | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Very High |
| Runnability | High | High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary |
| Cost | $ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Beyond Belief Games | Wizards of the Coast |
| Year | 2015 | 2024 |
| Best For | Groups who want fast, pulpy sword and sorcery in the vein of Conan: career-based characters, boons and flaws, and combat that resolves in minutes. | Groups who want heroic fantasy combining tactical grid combat with deep character-build options, scaling from one-shots up through long multi-tier campaigns. |
| Highlights | Career system is intuitive and fast, combat resolves in minutes, Hero Points enable pulp heroics, simple to learn and teach, spawned the Everywhen universal toolkit | Advantage and disadvantage collapse most situational modifiers into one mechanic: roll a second d20 and keep the higher or lower, so play rarely stops to total small bonuses. Each of the 12 classes offers four subclasses in the 2024 Player's Handbook, letting players reshape a class's role without multiclassing. Bounded accuracy keeps proficiency bonuses small, so low-level threats stay relevant in numbers and DCs read consistently across all tiers. |
| Considerations | Tightly coupled to its Lemuria setting, limited character advancement, combat lacks tactical depth | High-level play (tier 3–4) introduces significant spell interaction complexity and encounter balancing challenges for GMs. No official rules for non-fantasy genres. Three core books at $50 each represent a significant investment for the full rules. |