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Pathfinder or Fantasy Craft?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of these two unofficial D&D 3.5 "upgrades" compared to 3.5 and each other?

What kinds of play/groups are they more fit for? Tactical, rules light preferring, combat-oriented, roleplay-oriented, etc.

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I could tell you all about Pathfinder; but, all I know about FantasyCraft is that it's a fantasy spinoff of Spycraft. =) I'm curious to hear what others have to say about it. – RMorrisey Jul 20 '11 at 14:11
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Is FantasyCraft really an upgrade of DnD? I had always thought that it was divergent enough to be considered it's own system, whereas Pathfinder is specifically designed to continue 3.5 and make it more awesome. – Cthos Jul 20 '11 at 14:14
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My understanding is that FantasyCraft is more than just SpyCraft with Orcs. It's more along the lines of "we're doing for the fantasy genres what SpyCraft did for the espionage genre, and we're thoroughly updating the underlying mechanics as a result of everything we've already learned, doing SpyCraft". – Viktor Haag Jul 20 '11 at 15:08
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Pathfinder is essentially D&D 3.75. It's mostly just like 3.5, only better in some small ways. See: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/1/… – RMorrisey Jul 21 '11 at 1:27

1 Answer

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Both Pathfinder and FantasyCraft have their roots in D&D (as does Spycraft, honestly). A lot of the basic rules are similar, but FantasyCraft has, in my opinion, diverged the most. I find FantasyCraft to be more rule-detailed than Pathfinder, so is more suited to groups that like more structure. Both games are fairly combat-oriented, but FantasyCraft offers a better (in my opinion) mechanism for handling social "combat"

Finally, there seems to be a LOT more support for Pathfinder than FantasyCraft. That can be a benefit for groups that don't have a lot of spare time.

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