Daggerheart vs Pathfinder

Compare Daggerheart and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Daggerheart	Pathfinder
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Narrative, Collaborative, Fiction-First, Character Building, Character-Driven, Drama, Combat-Heavy, Resource Management, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Strong GM Support	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Players roll two d12s, add a trait and modifiers, and meet or beat a Difficulty to succeed. The higher die grants the player Hope or gives the GM Fear, even when the action succeeds. Matching dice produce a critical success. Adversary attacks use d20 plus a modifier against Evasion.	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	2d12, d20	d20
Complexity	Medium	High
Availability	Free core rules	Free core rules
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	5 of 5 book tools
License	Darrington Press Community Gaming License (DPCGL 2.0)	ORC
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Community gaming license	Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Darrington Press	Paizo
Year	2025	2023
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese	English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Best For	Groups who want fantasy campaigns built around character relationships and changing ability loadouts. Battles suit tables that share the spotlight without a fixed initiative order.	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	Hope can activate character abilities or add a backstory-based Experience to a roll. Players share the spotlight freely until a failure, a Fear result, or GM intervention shifts it. Each class combines two domains into a loadout of up to five active ability cards.	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 spotlight has no fixed turns or action allotment, requiring the group to share opportunities to act. Recalling inactive domain cards outside a rest can cost Stress. Resting restores resources but also gives the GM Fear to spend on further threats.	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.