Dungeons & Dragons vs Skies Above
Compare Dungeons & Dragons and Skies Above side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Dungeons & Dragons | Skies Above | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Tactical, Heroic, Character Building, High-Fantasy, Classic Fantasy, Combat-Heavy, Exploration, Resource Management, Strong GM Support, CC-Licensed Rules | JRPG, Cinematic, Tactical, High-Fantasy, Heroic, Character Building, Mana Points, Theater of the Mind, Lore-Heavy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a d20 and add applicable modifiers to meet or beat a target number. Checks and saving throws use a Difficulty Class; attacks use Armor Class. Advantage or disadvantage means rolling two d20s and keeping the higher or lower result. | 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 | d8 |
| Complexity | High | Medium |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (SRD 5.2.1); proprietary core books | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Open license | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast | Lost Haven Studio |
| Year | 2024 | 2026 |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, German, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want heroic fantasy campaigns with tactical combat and extensive character customization. | 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 | Weapon Mastery adds effects such as pushing or slowing enemies to qualifying weapon attacks. Class and feat choices let characters develop different roles over twenty levels. Optional Bastions give characters home bases with facilities that produce benefits between adventures. | 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 | Spells and class abilities have separate resource limits and timing rules. Higher-level magic can change travel and encounter assumptions that the DM must prepare for. Social encounters rely on ability checks and DM judgments about NPC attitudes. | 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. |