Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition vs Pathfinder

Compare Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition	Pathfinder
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Ascending AC, Character Building, Classic Fantasy, Crunchy, Dungeon Crawl, Tactical, Vancian Casting	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Roll a d20, add relevant modifiers, and compare the total to a target number. An equal or higher total succeeds. Ability checks, skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws use this framework. Combat uses initiative and defined action types, while damage dice are rolled after a hit.	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	d20	d20
Complexity	Very High	High
Availability	Paid	Free core rules
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	5 of 5 book tools
License	OGL v1.0a (SRD); core books proprietary	ORC
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Wizards of the Coast	Paizo
Year	2003	2023
Languages	English	English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Best For	Groups running fantasy campaigns that want class-based character advancement, prepared-spell resource planning, and position-sensitive combat. It also supports GMs who want encounter construction, monsters, treasure, and campaign procedures in the core set.	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	Class levels, skills, and feats create distinct mechanical advancement paths for characters. Grid combat combines initiative, movement, action types, attacks of opportunity, and special attacks into positional decisions. The Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual supply encounter, campaign, and creature-construction procedures alongside player rules.	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	Character creation requires choices across race, class, ability scores, skills, feats, equipment, and spells. Spellcasting uses separate class lists, spell levels, daily spell counts, and preparation rules. Encounter design requires the GM to reconcile challenge ratings, creature statistics, treasure, and adventure procedures.	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.