Pathfinder vs RuneQuest
Compare Pathfinder and RuneQuest side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | RuneQuest | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Combat-Heavy, Character Building, Dungeon Crawl, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Heroic, Ascending AC, Exploration, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy | Crunchy, Tactical, Lore-Heavy, Deadly, Character-Driven |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Roll d100 under your skill percentage. Criticals at 1/20th of skill, specials at 1/5th, fumbles at 95+. Seven characteristics (STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW, CHA). Combat uses hit locations (d20) with per-location HP and armor. Strike ranks determine action order. Runes are percentile-rated cosmic affinities that fuel magic and shape personality. Passions (Love, Hate, Honor, Loyalty) augment skills when invoked. |
| Dice | d20 | d100 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Community | Very High | Medium |
| License | ORC | All Rights Reserved |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | Free (Quickstart) / $$$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Chaosium Inc. |
| Year | 2023 | 2018 |
| Best For | Groups who want deep character customization, tactical grid combat with meaningful turn-by-turn decisions, and a richly detailed fantasy setting with free rules. | Groups who want deep mythic fantasy where characters are embedded in cults, clans, and cosmic forces — with tactical hit-location combat and a world steeped in decades of lore. |
| Highlights | 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. | Glorantha is one of the most detailed settings in RPG history, Rune and Passion mechanics tie characters to the mythic world, hit-location combat adds tactical detail, skill-based advancement through use, three distinct magic systems |
| Considerations | 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. | Very steep learning curve, tightly coupled to Glorantha setting, combat bookkeeping is heavy, expensive to collect all sourcebooks, dense lore for new players |