Dungeons & Dragons vs Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies

Compare Dungeons & Dragons and Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Dungeons & Dragons	Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC	Tag-Based, Fiction-First, Cinematic, Pirates, Ship-Based, Heroic
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.	Roll 2d6 and keep the best two, then add the Modifier of a relevant Forte, a descriptive Quality ranked from Poor (−2) to Master (+6), and compare the total to a Difficulty Rank's Target Number. Players narrate their own successes and failures, and may invoke Techniques to add dice or a flat +1 even after seeing the roll. Combat is resolved as a Duel, with each side splitting a 3d6 pool between attack and defense and the winning margin lowering the loser's Forte Ranks as damage.
Dice	d20	2d6 / 3d6
Complexity	Medium	Medium
Accessibility	Very High	Medium
Runnability	Very High	Medium
License	CC BY 4.0 (SRD); core books proprietary	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Open license	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Free	$$
Publisher	Wizards of the Coast	Evil Hat Productions
Year	2024	2009
Best For	Groups who want heroic fantasy with configurable tactical combat, broad character options, and campaigns that span multiple levels.	Groups who want a swashbuckling campaign of sky-pirates and musketeers in an original floating-island world, are comfortable with a light narrative meta-currency, and want skyship battles that give four to six players distinct crew roles.
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.	Players earn Style Dice by narrating their actions with flair and by leaning into their character's Foibles, then spend them to add dice, recover from damage, or assert new facts, tying mechanical advantage directly to dramatic play. Character abilities are broad descriptive Fortes such as "Colronan Musketeer" or "Sha-Ku Ruqrider," so a single Forte covers every related action at the table instead of a skill list while rooting the character in the setting. Before play the group sets explicit dials for firearm lethality, level of magic, and tone, letting the same setting run as cape-and-sword intrigue or deadly piracy.
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.	The Style Dice economy only drives play if the GM actively seeds and awards dice each session, and the genre-reward loop that powers the game stalls when it is left unmanaged. Starting koldun can take all seven Gifts cheaply and the magic stays deliberately open-ended, so it can overshadow other characters unless the GM sets the mysticism level beforehand. Skyship combat layers a multi-step crew sequence and a separate dice pool on top of personal combat, a sharp jump in table overhead from the otherwise light core.