Pathfinder vs The Riddle of Steel

Compare Pathfinder and The Riddle of Steel side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Pathfinder	The Riddle of Steel
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy	Tactical, Combat-Heavy, Deadly, Gritty, Simulation, Crunchy, Character-Driven, Freeform Magic, Classless, Lore-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 against a Target Number. Each die that meets or beats it is a success. Skill Tests roll an attribute's dice against the Skill Rating, where lower is better. Melee draws dice from a Combat Pool (Reflex plus Proficiency) that must cover attack and defense across a round's two exchanges. Spiritual Attributes add dice when a roll serves their stated focus.
Dice	d20	d10 dice pool
Complexity	High	High
Accessibility	Very High	Very Low
Runnability	Very High	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	Unavailable
Publisher	Paizo	Driftwood Publishing
Year	2023	2002
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 deadly, historically grounded melee decided by how fighters split their dice. It suits campaigns the Seneschal builds around each character's passions, drives, and destinies.
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.	Secret red-or-white die declarations and Combat Pool splits make each exchange a contest of reading the opponent. Points earned by acting on Spiritual Attributes add dice in play and also pay for advancement, rewarding characters who pursue their convictions. Sorcerers build spells on the fly from nine Vagaries, and each casting risks months of aging.
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.	There are no hit points, and one solid hit can kill a character outright. Sorcery is deliberately unbalanced against fighters, leaving the Seneschal to rein in sorcerer characters. Mass combat gets only an abstract contested Strategy roll, with no dedicated procedures for naval battles or sieges.