Dungeons & Dragons vs Pathfinder

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

	Dungeons & Dragons	Pathfinder
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Combat-Heavy, Exploration, Resource Management, Strong GM Support, CC-Licensed Rules	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Roll a d20 and add applicable modifiers to meet or beat a target number. Checks and saving throws use a Difficulty Class; attacks use Armor Class. Advantage or disadvantage means rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower result.	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	High	High
Availability	Free core rules	Free core rules
Runnability	5 of 5 book tools	5 of 5 book tools
License	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (SRD 5.2.1); proprietary core books	ORC
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Open license	Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Wizards of the Coast	Paizo
Year	2024	2023
Languages	English, French, Italian, German, Spanish	English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Best For	Groups who want heroic fantasy campaigns with tactical combat and extensive character customization.	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	Weapon Mastery adds effects such as pushing or slowing enemies to qualifying weapon attacks. Class and feat choices let characters develop different roles over twenty levels. Optional Bastions give characters home bases with facilities that produce benefits between adventures.	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	Spells and class abilities have separate resource limits and timing rules. Higher-level magic can change travel and encounter assumptions that the DM must prepare for. Social encounters rely on ability checks and DM judgments about NPC attitudes.	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.