Pathfinder vs SAKE
Compare Pathfinder and SAKE side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | SAKE | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Crunchy, Modular, Domain Management, Sandbox, Ship-Based, Faction Play, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based |
| 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 d20 + Skill Ranks + attribute modifier against a Difficulty Level. Characters are built with a point-buy system using Experience Points to purchase Skill Ranks, abilities, Health Points, and spells. In combat, the attacker rolls d20 + Attack against the defender's d20 + Parrying, with weapon damage reduced by armour's Damage Reduction. Sorcery uses Spellpoints and is divided into six schools, each with its own risks: failed casting rolls can trigger consequences from exhaustion to madness to summoning hostile spirits. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | ORC | All rights reserved |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Seventh Son Publishing |
| Year | 2023 | 2025 |
| 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 a comprehensive sandbox toolkit that seamlessly blends traditional adventuring with domain-level strategy: managing kingdoms, trading across oceans, waging wars, and navigating a detailed early-modern caste society. |
| 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 modular systems (Adventuring, Sorcery/Otherworld, Domain/Warfare, and Trade/Seafaring) each function independently and integrate with the others. Domain management operates through quarterly Domain Turns with taxes, construction, random events, espionage, and faction politics. Overseas trade system models supply, demand, and piracy across a mapped world with named trade regions and goods. Magic carries real consequences: learning spells risks madness, and failed castings can summon hostile spirits or damage the caster's soul. |
| 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. | 590-page rulebook requires significant reading investment before play, even with modular adoption. Character creation can take several hours for first-time players. The default setting (Asteanic World) is deeply integrated into many rules: the caste system, trade routes, and political factions assume that setting. |