Pathfinder vs Spire: The City Must Fall

Compare Pathfinder and Spire: The City Must Fall side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Pathfinder	Spire: The City Must Fall
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	Dark Fantasy, Narrative, Character-Driven, Espionage, Social Intrigue, Fiction-First, Gritty, Deadly, Mission-Based, Roleplay-Heavy
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 a pool of d10s — one base die, plus an additional die each for having the relevant skill, domain, and mastery — and take the highest result. Results run from 1 (critical failure, double stress) through 2–5 (failure), 6–7 (success at a cost), 8–9 (success), to 10 (critical success). Difficulty reduces the pool by 1–2 dice.
Dice	d20	d10 dice pool
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Very High	High
Community	Very High	Medium
License	ORC	All Rights Reserved
Cost	Free (ORC)	$$
Publisher	Paizo	Rowan, Rook and Decard
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 long-form campaigns as operatives in a revolutionary resistance movement, where faction politics and moral compromise shape each session as much as the missions themselves.
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.	Five separate resistance tracks (Blood, Mind, Shadow, Reputation, Silver) let different types of harm accumulate independently, each with its own fallout table. Fallout mechanics convert accumulated stress into concrete narrative consequences — broken limbs, criminal records, vendetta NPCs, or being burned by the Ministry — rather than flat stat penalties. NPC Bonds maintain their own stress tracks; calling in favors puts allies at risk, and bond fallout can cost safe houses, informants, or key relationships. Character advancement is tied to changing the city itself: small changes earn Low advances, moderate changes Medium, and huge or irreversible changes High — and the change does not have to be for the better.
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.	The drow revolution premise is deeply embedded in the fiction; the game is built around this specific setting and repurposing it for other campaigns requires significant adaptation. Combat has no rounds, turns, or initiative system; engagements are resolved as a narrative conversation with the GM choosing the order of action. Fallout can permanently remove or severely restrict character capabilities, including arrest, lost limbs, or exile from the Ministry.