Pathfinder vs When the Moon Hangs Low
Compare Pathfinder and When the Moon Hangs Low side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Pathfinder | When the Moon Hangs Low | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Horror, Fantasy |
| Play Style | Tactical, Crunchy, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Lore-Heavy | Horror, Dark Fantasy, Corruption, Investigation, Faction Play, Tactical, Solo-Friendly, Mission-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 a pool of d6 equal to the stat tied to the skill and count successes, with each die succeeding on 5–6 when Untrained, 4–6 when Trained, and 3–6 when Mastered. The number of successes must meet or beat a Difficulty Value set by the Gamemaster. Bonus and penalty dice adjust the pool. A penalty die that rolls 5–6 cancels a success. Opposed checks compare success counts instead of a fixed Difficulty Value. |
| Dice | d20 | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Accessibility | Very High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | ORC | Proprietary |
| Cost | Free (ORC) | $$ |
| Publisher | Paizo | Isolation Games |
| Year | 2023 | 2023 |
| 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 gothic-horror monster-hunting and investigation on a contract-driven mission structure, where characters carry a permanent curse that escalates as they lean on their powers. Also supports solo or GM-less play through the built-in Lone Hunter rules. |
| 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. | Each of the twelve Marks grants a supernatural Boon paired with a Curse that advances a stage every time the hunter runs out of Resolve, so power comes bundled with an escalating personal cost. Influence earned by bluffing, charming, or intimidating a faction accumulates as a spendable resource that buys concrete favors from four rival powers, turning social play into a persistent currency. A full Lone Hunter mode replaces the Gamemaster's difficulties with a success-tier table and twist tables, letting the same character and dice run solo without a separate ruleset. |
| 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. | A hunter's Mark is chosen at creation and can never be changed, locking in both its Boon and the eventual monstrous transformation the character is fated toward. The setting leaves its central mysteries, including the nature of the Bitter Sacrament and the buried ympir, deliberately unanswered for each Gamemaster to resolve or not. Most antagonists are Minions that never roll to Parry, Dodge, or Counterattack, so rank-and-file fights reduce to attackers rolling against a fixed number instead of opposed checks. |