Daggerheart vs Pathfinder
Compare Daggerheart and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, 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 |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| 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. | ||
| Cost | Free | Free |
| 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. |