Rifts vs Super Space Knights
Compare Rifts and Super Space Knights side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Rifts | Super Space Knights | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Post-Apocalyptic, Scifi, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero | Scifi |
| Tags | Character Building, Combat-Heavy, Crunchy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Gonzo, High-Power, Mana Points, Mecha, Superpowers, Tactical | CC-Licensed Rules, Combat-Heavy, Corruption, Fiction-First, Grimdark, Mission-Based, Playbook-Driven, Resource Management, Strong GM Support, Tag-Based |
| 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. | When a move's fictional trigger occurs, a player rolls 2d6 plus War, Faith, or Logistics. A 10 or higher succeeds, a 7 to 9 succeeds with a complication or price, and a 6 or lower fails with trouble to follow. |
| Dice | d20, d100 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Very High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Palladium Books Internet Policy limited license | Commercial publishing allowed — CC BY 4.0 |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $ |
| Publisher | Palladium Books Inc. | Gabriel Ciprés |
| Year | 2005 | 2023 |
| 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 military science-fiction campaigns at company scale, with shared worldbuilding and a corruption spiral that can turn victories into the Order's downfall. |
| 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. | Players define the Order and its galactic context together, making the military empire and its enemies specific to their campaign. Damnation can produce powerful Darkness Taints or corrupt the Order itself, turning ruthless victories into a path toward collapse. Linked rules for companies, individual knights, and spaceships let missions shift scale while retaining the same fictional framework. |
| 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. | Players usually control companies of dozens or hundreds of warriors, so individual characters receive less attention than the military unit. The premise centers an authoritarian human empire locked in perpetual war, and play repeatedly pressures companies toward violence and compromise. Conflicts between opponents at different scales resolve quickly in favor of the larger force, removing an underdog roll from those confrontations. |