Pathfinder vs Ryuutama
Compare Pathfinder and Ryuutama side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Ryuutama | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Exploration, Beginner-Friendly, Character-Driven, Narrative, Family, Atmospheric, Low-Prep |
| 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 two ability dice (d4–d12) and add them together vs. a target number. Four daily travel rolls (Condition, Travel, Direction, Camping) drive gameplay. Classes are travelers (farmers, merchants, healers, artisans), not warriors. The GM plays a Ryuujin (dragon person) who secretly guides the journey. Seasonal magic and terrain types shape encounters. |
| Dice | d20 | d4–d12 |
| Complexity | High | Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | ORC | Proprietary |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Kotodama Heavy Industries |
| Year | 2023 | 2015 |
| 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 cozy, travel-focused adventures where the journey itself is the story: minstrels, merchants, and healers exploring a gentle fantasy world. |
| Highlights | 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. | Four daily travel rolls (Condition, Travel, Direction, Camping) make the journey the core gameplay loop, condition system tracks daily well-being mechanically, seven traveler classes (farmer, merchant, healer, etc.) instead of combat archetypes, seasonal magic system tied to terrain types |
| 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 draws feats from ancestry, class, skill, and general pools at every level, making each build a slow step. | Limited random tables for generating travel encounters, Ryuujin GM character has benediction powers that direct the narrative, combat system is simplified compared to travel mechanics, setting assumes a gentle-fantasy tone with no built-in support for darker themes |