Coyote & Crow vs Pathfinder
Compare Coyote & Crow and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Coyote & Crow | Pathfinder | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Scifi, Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Character Building, Character-Driven, Classless, Skill-Based, Tactical, Theater of the Mind, Lore-Heavy, Heroic | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Build a d12 pool from Skill Rank, the applicable related Stat, and modifiers. Trained Skills use the higher related Stat, while Rank 0 uses the lower. Each die meeting the Success Number, usually 8, adds one success. Each 1 subtracts a success, while each 12 creates a Critical die. A positive total succeeds, 0 fails, and a negative total is a critical failure. | 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 | d12 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | ORC |
| Cost | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Coyote & Crow Games | Paizo |
| Year | 2021 | 2023 |
| Best For | Groups that want character-driven exploration and protection in an Indigenous science-fantasy future. It suits tables that prefer consequential choices and tactical conflicts resolved through abstract range bands. | 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 | Player-authored Goals turn character ambitions into advancement, keeping campaign development tied to choices made in play. Chosen Initiative makes turn order a recurring tactical decision instead of a one-time roll. The Three Path Concept turns non-linear scenario design into a concrete prep tool, so major obstacles support meaningful alternatives to combat. | The three-action economy gives every turn the same three actions to spend on strikes, movement, or spells, so each turn is a fresh tactical decision. Characters customize through ancestry, class, skill, and general feats gained at nearly every level, letting builds diverge sharply within a single class. Four degrees of success, set by beating or missing the DC by 10, turn each roll into a range of outcomes rather than a binary result. |
| Considerations | The unified check is consistent, but character options and interlocking encounter procedures create substantial rules overhead. Success Numbers and critical Story Events depend on Story Guide judgment, so consistent difficulty and consequences require steady table rulings. The setting leaves much of its metaphysics deliberately open, requiring the group to establish what is real before play. | 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 draws feats from ancestry, class, skill, and general pools at every level, making each build a slow step. |