Pathfinder vs Tales of Xadia
Compare Pathfinder and Tales of Xadia side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Tales of Xadia | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Narrative, Character-Driven, Character Building, Classless, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Corruption, Roll to Cast, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support, Licensed IP |
| 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. | Build and roll a d4–d12 dice pool from an attribute, a value and a distinction, adding one applicable specialty and assets. Results of 1 are hitches and cannot contribute to the total or effect. Add two eligible results to beat the opposition's total. Choose an unused eligible die whose size determines the effect rather than its rolled number. |
| Dice | d20 | d4–d12 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | ORC | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Dire Wolf Digital |
| Year | 2023 | 2022 |
| 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 fantasy campaigns where changing convictions and relationships matter mechanically alongside magical adventures in The Dragon Prince's setting. |
| 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. | Questioning a value statement triples its die for a roll and feeds growth, making changes of conviction mechanically consequential. Contests can change major non-player characters' values, letting persuasion reshape their future behavior. Extended challenges resolve varied approaches against a shrinking dice pool, supporting obstacles beyond physical combat. |
| 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. | Stress strengthens opposing dice pools, making unresolved setbacks harder to overcome. Guided rune-mage creation links ancestry and upbringing to magical vocation, limiting characters' inherent access to different sources of primal magic. Trait advancement uses growth dice in tests that can fail, rather than guaranteeing an upgrade after every story arc. |