Amazing Heroes vs Rifts

Compare Amazing Heroes and Rifts side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Amazing Heroes	Rifts
Genre	Superhero, Modern	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero
Tags	Beginner-Friendly, Rules-Light, Family-Friendly, Superpowers, Narrative, Fiction-First, Cinematic, Theater of the Mind, One-Shot Friendly, Strong GM Support	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical
Core Mechanic	Each hero has four traits (an occupation, a body attribute, a personality attribute, and a superpower) assigned a d6, d6, d8, and d10 at creation. When the outcome is uncertain, the player rolls the relevant trait die against a difficulty of 3 (easy), 4 (normal), or 5 (hard), adding +1 if a body or personality attribute fits. Rolls of 1 or 2 on a normal or hard test inflict a condition like 'tired' or 'hurt'; a repeated condition becomes 'really [X]' and imposes a –1 penalty, and a third hurt condition defeats the hero. Defeating a villain requires successes equal to the villain's level times the number of heroes.	Combat and saving throws use a d20 plus bonuses, with high results overcoming a target number or opposing roll. Skills use d100 and succeed when the result is at or below the character's percentage.
Dice	d6–d12	d20, d100
Complexity	Very Low	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	Medium
Runnability	Low	Very High
License	Proprietary	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$	$$
Publisher	Amazing Tales	Palladium Books Inc.
Year	2021	2005
Languages	English	English
Best For	Mixed-age tables wanting a fast, narrative superhero RPG that genuinely works for kids aged 7+ alongside adults: sessions are designed to cram an hour of TV-style action into a single sitting.	Groups who want long-form science-fantasy campaigns that move from a ruined Earth to other dimensions. The game suits tables whose GM will decide which parts of the broad setting a campaign uses.
Highlights	Trait dice carry transparent in-fiction meaning at each step (d6 is 'best in your country,' d12 is 'best in the world'), so players and GMs negotiate power level by description rather than parsing stat blocks. Conditions like 'tired' or 'shaken' replace HP entirely and stack into 'really [X]' with a –1 penalty before a third instance defeats the hero, keeping damage in fiction while still tracking toward a losing point. The GM receives plot points equal to the number of players each session and spends them on cinematic moves (villain ambushes, escapes with a planted clue, perfect disguises, 'missing body' recurring foes), encoding superhero-TV pacing as a budgeted resource.	Occupational and racial class packages assign distinct abilities and advancement tracks, giving each archetype a different role in the party. Mega-Damage places many supernatural creatures and war machines on a separate durability scale beyond the reach of ordinary Structural Damage Capacity attacks. Rifts and ley lines make dimensional travel a standing feature of the setting, letting campaigns move between devastated Earth and other worlds.
Considerations	Superpowers have no defined list or mechanical effects beyond a die size, so the GM must adjudicate what each novel use of a power can do on the fly. Advancement caps at d12+1 and amounts to larger dice plus secondary powers branched from a parent power, so long-running heroes don't gain meaningfully different mechanical options from starting ones. Villain fights accumulate flat successes equal to villain level × number of heroes with no incremental damage per hit, which can grind against tougher foes when most attack rolls only mark a single tick of progress.	Character creation combines rolled attributes with extensive skill selection, making first-time preparation lengthy. Combat asks each player to track an action economy, active defenses, and which damage scale applies. Magic and psionics use separate point pools and power procedures, adding class-specific rules to the shared system.