Rifts vs Spire: The City Must Fall

Compare Rifts and Spire: The City Must Fall side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Rifts	Spire: The City Must Fall
Genre	Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero	Fantasy
Tags	Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical	Dark Fantasy, Narrative, Character-Driven, Espionage, Social Intrigue, Fiction-First, Gritty, Deadly, Mission-Based, Roleplay-Heavy
Core Mechanic	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.	Roll a pool of d10s (one base die, plus an additional die each for having the relevant skill, domain, and mastery) and take the highest result. Results run from 1 (critical failure, double stress) through 2–5 (failure), 6–7 (success at a cost), 8–9 (success), to 10 (critical success). Difficulty reduces the pool by 1–2 dice.
Dice	d20, d100	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	Palladium Books Inc.	Rowan, Rook and Decard
Year	2005	2018
Best For	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.	Groups who want long-form campaigns as operatives in a revolutionary resistance movement, where faction politics and moral compromise shape each session as much as the missions themselves.
Highlights	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.	Five separate resistance tracks (Blood, Mind, Shadow, Reputation, Silver) let different types of harm accumulate independently, each with its own fallout table. Fallout mechanics convert accumulated stress into concrete narrative consequences (broken limbs, criminal records, vendetta NPCs, or being burned by the Ministry) rather than flat stat penalties. NPC Bonds maintain their own stress tracks; calling in favors puts allies at risk, and bond fallout can cost safe houses, informants, or key relationships. Character advancement is tied to changing the city itself: small changes earn Low advances, moderate changes Medium, and huge or irreversible changes High. The change does not have to be for the better.
Considerations	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.	The drow revolution premise is deeply embedded in the fiction; the game is built around this specific setting and repurposing it for other campaigns requires significant adaptation. Combat has no rounds, turns, or initiative system; engagements are resolved as a narrative conversation with the GM choosing the order of action. Fallout can permanently remove or severely restrict character capabilities, including arrest, lost limbs, or exile from the Ministry.