Pathfinder vs Tiny Dungeon
Compare Pathfinder and Tiny Dungeon side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Tiny Dungeon | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Low-Prep, Fast-Paced, Dungeon Crawl, Theater of the Mind, Heroic, Tag-Based |
| 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 2d6: if any die shows 5 or 6, you succeed. Advantage grants 3d6; Disadvantage drops you to 1d6. No attributes, no skill list: Traits grant situational Advantage, and weapon Mastery/Proficiency determines combat dice. |
| Dice | d20 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | High | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | ORC | Proprietary (TinyD6) |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Gallant Knight Games |
| 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 wanting fast, minimalist fantasy with almost zero rules overhead: character creation in minutes, core mechanic in one sentence, and tons of optional modules to bolt on. |
| 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. | Entire core rules fit in ~20 pages, character fits on an index card, huge trait list for customization without complexity, 17 included microsettings, extensive optional rules (martial disciplines, magic schools, ship combat) let you dial complexity up |
| 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. | Binary pass/fail with no degrees of success, fantasy-only (other TinyD6 games cover sci-fi), no built-in advancement by default (optional), very light on tactical depth |