Cosmere RPG vs Skies Above

Compare Cosmere RPG and Skies Above side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Cosmere RPG	Skies Above
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Crunchy, Character Building, Heroic, High-Fantasy, Tactical, Licensed IP, Lore-Heavy	JRPG, Cinematic, Tactical, High-Fantasy, Heroic, Character Building, Mana Points, Theater of the Mind, Lore-Heavy
Core Mechanic	Roll d20 + skill vs. difficulty. The GM can raise the stakes on key rolls by adding the plot die: a custom d6 with Opportunity, Complication, and blank faces. Opportunities grant bonus effects chosen by the player; Complications introduce narrative twists chosen by the GM but also add a bonus to the roll. Each combat round, characters choose a fast turn (2 actions, act first) or slow turn (3 actions, act later). Characters advance through branching talent trees across 6 heroic paths and 9 Radiant paths.	Roll d8 + two Attributes + modifiers against a Target Number (typically 10, increasing in steps of 4 for harder tasks). Natural 8s explode, rolling and adding again; every additional 8 raises the Critical Level, scaling damage and effects. A natural 1 is an Epic Fail that halves the character's Defences until their next turn. Critical hits dealt and taken generate Overdrive: once eight stacks accumulate, characters spend them to take an additional action that round, modeling the limit-break payoff of classic JRPGs.
Dice	d20 + d6	d8
Complexity	High	Medium
Availability	Free quickstart	Free quickstart
Runnability	Book tools not listed	4 of 5 book tools
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Not yet researched
Publisher	Brotherwise Games	Lost Haven Studio
Year	2025	2026
Languages	English	English
Best For	Brandon Sanderson fans who want deep character customization and hard-magic systems brought to the table: groups who enjoy Pathfinder-level build depth in a richly detailed setting.	Groups who want a JRPG-inspired tabletop adventure: picking from twelve jobs like Dragoon, Dark Mage, or Engineer, channeling elemental magic blessed by eight goddesses, and journeying by airship across floating sky-islands in the aftermath of a magical cataclysm.
Highlights	Deep lore integration with the Cosmere setting, extensive character customization rivals Pathfinder, plot die adds dramatic tension, fast/slow turn initiative lets players trade actions for turn order, Foundry VTT support	Exploding d8 with stacking Critical Levels: multiple natural 8s in a row cascade into larger crits and bigger effects, so heroic moments scale rather than cap. Overdrive accumulates from critical hits dealt and received, and spending eight stacks grants an additional action that round, giving combat a JRPG limit-break rhythm. Twelve job roles span melee, magic, ranged, and support archetypes, and characters add a second job at level 12 to cross-pollinate abilities and weapon ranks. Eight elemental goddesses anchor both magic and the bestiary: every Skyfolk lineage is blessed with resistance to one element, and creatures carry specific elemental weaknesses that double incoming damage.
Considerations	Plot die adds a layer of opportunity/complication outcomes on top of pass/fail increasing cognitive overhead per roll, rulebook organization is poor and unclear in places, large barrier to entry for non-Sanderson fans, social encounters can feel repetitive	Combat is the most heavily detailed pillar of the rules, with conditions, elemental damage, front/back row positioning, and an optional battlefield grid: investigation, intrigue, and downtime get coverage but less mechanical depth. Light and Dark Mages cannot learn from the opposing path, locking each spellcaster out of half the elemental spell list and pushing magical variety into multi-job characters. The exploding-d8 swing is wide: consecutive 8s can demolish encounters while a natural 1 halves a character's Defences and opens them to brutal counters. Setting and mechanics are tightly woven: Skyfolk lineages, the eight Goddesses, and post-Breaking lore are baked into character options rather than presented as swappable flavor.