Legend of the Five Rings vs Pathfinder First Edition

Compare Legend of the Five Rings and Pathfinder First Edition side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Legend of the Five Rings	Pathfinder First Edition
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Play Style	Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Drama, Career-Based, Crunchy, Lore-Heavy	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Vancian Casting
Core Mechanic	Roll-and-keep with custom dice. The player picks a skill and an elemental approach (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, or Void): the approach determines how the action is attempted, so a Fire approach to combat is a reckless overwhelming strike while a Water approach redirects an opponent's force. The pool is Ring dice (d6) equal to the chosen ring's value plus Skill dice (d12) equal to skill rank; after rolling, the player keeps up to ring-value dice. Kept faces show some mix of successes, explosive successes, opportunity, and strife symbols: successes meet a target number, opportunity spends create narrative effects, and accumulated strife eventually drives the character into Compromised.	Most uncertain actions roll a d20, add relevant modifiers, and compare the total with a target or opposing result. Difficulty Class, Armor Class, and Combat Maneuver Defense are common targets; natural 1s and 20s can override some comparisons.
Dice	d6 + d12 custom dice	d20
Complexity	High	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	Open Game License 1.0a
Cost	$$	Free
Publisher	Fantasy Flight Games	Paizo Publishing, LLC
Year	2018	2009
Best For	Groups who want samurai drama where internal conflict between sworn duty and personal desire matters as much as the sword, with structured rules for court intrigues and duels alongside skirmish combat.	Groups who want long fantasy campaigns centered on detailed character development and tactical grid combat.
Highlights	Approach choice means the same skill check resolves differently depending on which ring drives it, mechanizing personality and method instead of relegating them to flavor. Strife accumulates from dice rolls and triggers Compromised when it exceeds composure, turning emotional pressure into a tracked resource without a separate sanity subsystem. Ninjō (personal desire) and giri (sworn duty) are written into each character sheet, and the conflict between them is the engine of advancement and downtime scenes.	Eleven core classes progress through twenty levels with interlocking feat and class choices that support specialized builds. Combat makes positioning and turn timing consequential through attacks of opportunity and combat maneuvers. Prepared and spontaneous spellcasting draw from hundreds of level-gated spells, giving magical classes distinct planning and resource cycles.
Considerations	Custom dice are required and not easily substituted: physical sets must be purchased separately or the official dice app used. Honor, glory, status, strife, composure, void points, and conflict-specific resources all track separately, so social bookkeeping is heavy outside of skirmishes. The mechanical structure is tightly bound to Rokugan's clan system and Bushidō expectations: reskinning to other settings unwinds large chunks of character creation and technique progression.	Character creation and advancement require cross-checking large option catalogs and prerequisites, which can front-load decision making. Combat combines situational modifiers with nested action and exception rules, which can slow adjudication. High-level play layers additional character abilities and magical options, increasing preparation for players and GMs.