Pathfinder vs ShenaniGoblins
Compare Pathfinder and ShenaniGoblins side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | ShenaniGoblins | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Comedy, Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Beginner-Friendly, Low-Prep, Tag-Based, Player-Only Rolls, Freeform Magic, Character-Driven, CC-Licensed Rules |
| 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. | To Do The Thing, roll one d6 for each Trait the Goblin Master agrees would help. Add one die for a helpful item in the goblin's Pockets, two when the goblin often does this task as part of its Job, and one per helper, then remove one die per character trying to stop the goblin. Each 5 or 6 is a Hit, and the goblin succeeds when the Hits equal or exceed the Goblin Master's difficulty of 1 to 5. Dice hit on 4+ when the action directly serves the goblin's Dream or the player spends 2 Sparks, and only on 6 when the player takes 1 XP for a hindering Trait. Two or more dice showing the same number also trigger Chaos Magic, adding Something Bad on a match of 1–3 or Something Good on a match of 4–6 on top of the roll's result. |
| Dice | d20 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | ORC | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses | Noncommercial only — Open license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | Free |
| Publisher | Paizo | Jon Pessin |
| Year | 2023 | 2025 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese | English |
| 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 silly, low-prep fantasy one-shot about incompetent minions, where arguing a goblin's quirks into the dice pool is part of the fun. |
| 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. | Matching dice add a Chaos Magic event on top of the roll's result, so even a successful roll can bring Something Bad. Damage marks off Traits that cannot be rolled until they recover, so an injured goblin loses dice instead of hit points. Fulfilling a goblin's Dream grants an immediate Level and a new Trait, and the player then sets an even more grandiose Dream. |
| 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. | Spark-powered magic has no spell list or cost table, so the Goblin Master judges how many Sparks each change costs. Any pool of seven or more dice is certain to contain a matching pair, which guarantees a Chaos Magic event. The rules include no character death: a goblin with every Trait marked is Out until one recovers. |