Hunter: The Reckoning vs Rifts
Compare Hunter: The Reckoning and Rifts side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Hunter: The Reckoning | Rifts | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero |
| Tags | Investigation, Mystery, Character-Driven, Gritty, Deadly, Atmospheric, Social Combat, Strong GM Support, Lore-Heavy, Urban Fantasy | Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d10s, usually an Attribute plus a Skill. Each 6 or higher is a success. Meeting the Storyteller's Difficulty wins. Each pair of 10s counts as four successes. On tests within their creed's Field, Hunters may choose to add Desperation Dice equal to the cell's shared Desperation rating. A 1 on any Desperation Die turns a win into a choice: keep it and raise the cell's Danger, or fail and enter Despair. A failed test with a Desperation 1 always causes Despair. | 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 | d10 dice pool | d20, d100 |
| Complexity | Medium | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $$ |
| Publisher | Renegade Game Studios | Palladium Books Inc. |
| Year | 2022 | 2005 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want investigation-heavy modern horror in which a cell of ordinary people researches, plans, and confronts a monster at real personal risk. | 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 | Desperation rises after the cell's setbacks, so mounting trouble adds both dice and risk to later Field tests. Overreach lets a player keep a win by raising the cell's Danger, which escalates the quarry's response against the whole cell. Monsters have weaknesses Hunters can discover, so research pays off as concrete advantages in the final confrontation. | 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 | Desperation Dice apply only to tests within a Hunter's creed Field, so a character's signature boost sits idle outside that specialty. The book recommends ending most conflicts after about three turns, which leaves little room for extended tactical combat. The content warning covers themes such as sexual violence and torture, so groups should calibrate boundaries before play. | 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. |