Forbidden Lands vs Pathfinder
Compare Forbidden Lands and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Forbidden Lands | Pathfinder | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Sandbox, Hexcrawl, Gritty, Survival, Deadly, Exploration, Base-Building, Random Tables | Tactical, Crunchy, Combat-Heavy, Character Building, Dungeon Crawl, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Heroic, Ascending AC, Exploration, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d6s (attribute + skill + gear dice). Each 6 is a success. You can push your roll for extra dice, but risk damaging gear and taking conditions. Gear dice degrade on 1s. Year Zero Engine. | 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 | d6 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | Medium | High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Very High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Year Zero Engine OGL | ORC |
| Cost | $$ | Free (ORC) |
| Publisher | Free League Publishing | Paizo |
| Year | 2018 | 2023 |
| Best For | Sandbox hexcrawl campaigns with stronghold building, resource management, and a dark fantasy tone. Great for groups who want to explore and carve out their own corner of the world. | 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 | Detailed sandbox tools and hexcrawl structure, stronghold building adds long-term goals, push mechanic creates meaningful risk, low-prep with random encounter tables and legend handouts | Complete rules available free on Archives of Nethys. Three-action economy gives every turn meaningful tactical decisions. Character customization through ancestry feats, class feats, skill feats, and general feats at every level. Four degrees of success on every roll add granularity to outcomes. |
| Considerations | Tightly tied to its Ravenland setting, push mechanic can frustrate cautious players, stronghold rules require the full boxed set, hex encounters can feel repetitive without GM preparation | 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 requires selecting feats from multiple categories at every level, which can overwhelm new players. |