Pathfinder vs Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City
Compare Pathfinder and Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Scifi, Post-Apocalyptic |
| Tags | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Journey, Exploration, Sandbox, Resource Management, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Improvisation, Strong GM Support, Gonzo, Weird |
| 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 + the relevant stat + a trained skill bonus to exceed a target number. A natural 1 fails and a natural 20 succeeds. Advantage adds a die and keeps the better result; disadvantage keeps the worse result, and the two cancel. Some tests instead read the total on an outcome table. |
| Dice | d20 | d20 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | ORC | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open and compatibility licenses | Commercial publishing allowed — When Time Fades compatibility license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Exalted Funeral Press |
| Year | 2023 | 2019 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese | English, Portuguese |
| 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 a long science-fantasy caravan campaign centered on exploration, trade, and survival across an open-ended world. |
| 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. | Weekly travel procedures connect supplies and setbacks to the time available for exploration. Discoveries award experience for reaching and investigating unfamiliar places. Market research and trade-route investments let a caravan turn geographical knowledge into income. |
| 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. | The included SEACAT rules are an excerpt rather than the complete engine, and most spells are omitted. A week of rest normally restores only one damaged attribute or condition. The setting includes slavery, drug addiction, and body horror. |