Pathfinder vs Tales of the Valiant
Compare Pathfinder and Tales of the Valiant side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Tales of the Valiant | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Tactical |
| 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 + modifier against a target number or opposed check. Uses the core 5e framework: six ability scores, proficiency bonus, advantage/disadvantage. Adds a Talent system for additional character customization, reorganizes spells into numbered Circles, and introduces new Heritages and Lineages for character creation. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Very High | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | High |
| License | ORC | Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 (Black Flag Reference Document) |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Kobold Press |
| Year | 2023 | 2024 |
| 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 to continue playing 5e-style fantasy with backwards-compatible adventures but prefer an independent publisher with new heritages, talents, and spell circle organization. |
| 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. | Fully backwards-compatible with 5e adventures and supplements, Talent system adds character customization beyond subclass choice, spell Circles streamline spell level organization, backed by Kobold Press's extensive monster and adventure catalog |
| 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. | Very similar to 5e: groups satisfied with existing 5e rules may not find enough differentiation, still building its own identity separate from D&D, Monster Vault sold separately |