Pathfinder vs VI·VIII·X

Compare Pathfinder and VI·VIII·X side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Pathfinder	VI·VIII·X
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Play Style	Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, Grid-Based, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy	Skill-Based, Career-Based, Freeform Magic, Roll to Cast, Deadly, Gritty, Experimental
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.	Action Resolution Check (ARC) — roll the die set by your Exclusive Skill score (d4 at skill 1–2 up to d12 at skill 9–10); rolling at or under the skill adds that result while rolling over subtracts the difference. Add the governing Character Stat and your Morality Index, then beat a hidden GM threshold (ARCT) or an opponent's roll (ARCO), with ties going to the defender. Because the Morality Index feeds every check, how closely a character follows their chosen moral Path constantly raises or lowers all their rolls.
Dice	d20	d4–d12
Complexity	High	Medium
Accessibility	Very High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Low
License	ORC	VI·VIII·X Third Party License
Cost	Free (ORC)	Free / $
Publisher	Paizo	Knight of the Lake Games
Year	2023	2025
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.	Experienced GMs running morally grounded fantasy who want player choices to carry hidden mechanical weight, and tables that prefer immersion and information asymmetry over full rules transparency.
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.	A character's Morality Index adds to every check, so holding to a chosen moral Path lifts all rolls while drifting from it imposes a growing penalty until the character returns, and the GM tracks the grid position in secret so players feel the swing without seeing its cause. Secret Sorcery, the arcane tradition, pairs one element word with one principle word from twelve Magic Circles to declare any effect the GM prices by scope, removing spell lists and preparation and pushing magic toward improvised problem-solving. Characters have no hit points, so damage lowers the relevant Character Stat, and a stat reduced to zero starts a countdown of stat-plus-level turns during which healing can still reverse it before death locks in.
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.	The Keep Uneducated Paradigm places the morality grid, hidden thresholds, growth points, and State of Mind tracking entirely on the GM, a parallel bookkeeping load that grows with the party. Resting recovers only one or two stat points per day and any real activity reverses healing, while magical healing ages the character a week per point restored, forcing long downtime between fights. Social interaction has no mechanical subsystem and defaults to the player's own roleplaying, so persuasion, intimidation, and negotiation rely on the generic check rather than any dedicated social rules.