Pathfinder vs Troika!
Compare Pathfinder and Troika! side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Troika! | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Scifi |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Combat-Heavy, Character Building, Dungeon Crawl, High-Fantasy, Grid-Based, Heroic, Ascending AC, Exploration, Classic Fantasy, Lore-Heavy | Rules-Light, Weird, Random Character Creation, Low-Prep, Improvisation, Deadly, Random Tables |
| 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. | Three stats: Skill, Stamina, Luck. Roll 2d6 under Skill + Advanced Skill to succeed. Initiative uses a random token-draw stack — unpredictable turn order. Luck is a consumable resource that depletes with each test. |
| Dice | d20 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | High | Very Low |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Community | Very High | Medium |
| License | ORC | Open (Troika! SRD) |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Melsonian Arts Council |
| Year | 2023 | 2019 |
| 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. | Fast, surreal science-fantasy adventures with minimal rules, random character generation, and a vibrant third-party ecosystem. Ideal for one-shots and improvisational play. |
| 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. | Simple rules, creative backgrounds double as setting material, large third-party ecosystem (700+ titles), chaotic initiative creates unpredictable combat, affordable |
| 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. | Initiative stack can leave players unable to act for long stretches, mixed roll-under/roll-over mechanics confuse new players, setting is implied rather than described, minimal tactical depth |