Nimble vs Rock & Stone
Compare Nimble and Rock & Stone side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Nimble | Rock & Stone | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Fast-Paced, Heroic, Combat-Heavy, Grid-Based, Character Building, Classic Fantasy, Beginner-Friendly, Strong GM Support, Low-Prep | Classic Fantasy, Comedy, Dungeon Crawl, Fast-Paced, Heroic, High-Power, Random Tables, Rules-Light, Strong GM Support, Theater of the Mind |
| Core Mechanic | Skill checks and saves roll a d20 plus the relevant skill or stat against a DC. A natural 1 always fails and a natural 20 always succeeds. Attacks skip the to-hit roll: roll the attack's listed damage and deal the total. On most attacks, a 1 on the leftmost Primary Die misses and a maximum on that die explodes into a critical hit. Advantage and disadvantage add dice of the same type and drop the lowest or highest. | 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 |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Free core rules |
| Runnability | 4 of 5 book tools | 2 of 5 book tools |
| License | Nimble 3rd Party Creator License v2.0 | AELF Open License Version 1.0a |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Creator license | Commercial publishing allowed — AELF Open License Version 1.0a |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Nimble Co. | Sebastian Hahn |
| Year | 2025 | 2025 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want class-based heroic fantasy with tactical grid fights and no separate to-hit roll. Also a good fit for a group whose GM is running a game for the first time. | 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 | Heroic Reactions such as Defend and Interpose normally cost one of a hero's three actions, so reacting on an enemy's turn leaves fewer actions for the hero's own turn. Assess spends an action on a skill check to ask the GM a question that must be answered honestly or to create an opening, bringing roleplay into combat turns. Legendary monsters act after each hero's turn and list HP per hero, so one boss scales to the size of the party. | 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 | Movement, reach, and area effects are counted in grid spaces, so gridless play relies on one of the optional movement variants. Damage can swing widely because a single roll decides both whether an attack hits and how much it deals. Outside combat, social and exploration scenes run on skill checks and GM-built skill challenges rather than dedicated subsystems. | 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. |