Mage: The Ascension vs Pathfinder

Compare Mage: The Ascension and Pathfinder side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Mage: The Ascension	Pathfinder
Genre	Fantasy, Modern, Horror	Fantasy
Tags	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Roll an Attribute-plus-Ability pool of d10s and count dice meeting the difficulty, usually 6. Each rolled 1 cancels a success. A roll botches only when no die meets the difficulty and at least one die shows 1. Magick instead rolls Arete, the mage's enlightenment rating, against a difficulty based on the highest Sphere used and whether the effect violates ordinary reality. Successes determine the effect's extent.	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	d10 dice pool	d20
Complexity	Very High	High
Accessibility	High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	ORC
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault	Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	Free
Publisher	Onyx Path Publishing	Paizo
Year	2015	2023
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish	English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Best For	Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality.	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	Nine Spheres combine into improvised magical effects beyond a fixed spell list. A mage's beliefs determine the practices and instruments that make those effects possible. Concealing magick within plausible events reduces the risk of reality's backlash.	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	Improvised magick requires the group to agree on what an effect can accomplish before rolling. Accumulated Paradox can injure a mage or trap them in a distorted reality. Cabals need shared motives to keep incompatible faction loyalties from pulling the campaign apart.	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.