Dungeons & Dragons vs Rock & Stone
Compare Dungeons & Dragons and Rock & Stone side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Dungeons & Dragons | Rock & Stone | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC | Classic Fantasy, Comedy, Dungeon Crawl, Fast-Paced, Heroic, High-Power, Random Tables, Rules-Light, Strong GM Support, Theater of the Mind |
| Core Mechanic | Make a D20 Test by rolling d20, adding relevant modifiers, and comparing the total to a target number. Ability checks, saving throws, and attack rolls use this procedure. Advantage and disadvantage use two d20s and keep the higher or lower result. | For a test, roll a d20 and add the relevant skill; a total above the GM-set difficulty succeeds, while an exact match succeeds with a complication. Natural 20s and 1s produce especially heroic successes and fatal failures. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary | AELF Open License Version 1.0a |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Commercial publishing allowed — AELF Open License Version 1.0a |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | Free |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast | Sebastian Hahn |
| Year | 2024 | 2025 |
| Best For | Groups who want heroic fantasy with configurable tactical combat, broad character options, and campaigns that span multiple levels. | Groups who want a fast, rules-light dungeon crawl about unusually capable dwarven mercenaries, with a compact setting and a ready-to-run starting adventure. |
| Highlights | Advantage and disadvantage resolve common situational effects by selecting the higher or lower of two d20 rolls. Backgrounds, classes, subclasses, and feats distribute character choices across creation and advancement. Weapon Mastery gives qualifying weapon users distinct tactical effects without replacing the action economy. | Gold committed to the dwarven hoard pays for levels, tying treasure recovery directly to advancement. Archetypes grant selectable active and passive abilities, giving each dwarf a distinct role within the shared skill system. Carousing turns a between-adventure roll into complications and opportunities that can seed later expeditions. |
| Considerations | Spell preparation, spell slots, class features, and conditions create several interacting resources for players to track. High-level characters combine many spells and features, increasing adjudication work for the DM. Bastions add a separate downtime procedure for campaigns that use the stronghold rules. | Characters are built around the last-dwarves premise, although the rules permit other heroes. Advancement grants its largest skill and ability gains through level four, after which levels add only hit points and one skill point. Spells are fixed archetype abilities with limited daily uses, so groups seeking open-ended magic will not find it here. |