Rifts vs Swords & Wizardry
Compare Rifts and Swords & Wizardry side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Rifts | Swords & Wizardry | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Deadly, Vancian Casting, Ascending AC, Descending AC, Domain Management, Theater of the Mind |
| 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 d20 to hit, comparing the result to the target's Armor Class using either ascending bonuses or the original descending-AC math. A single saving throw number, adjusted by class, resolves every save against poison, magic, breath, and the rest. |
| Dice | d20, d100 | d20 |
| Complexity | Very High | Low |
| Accessibility | Medium | Very 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 | $$ | Free |
| Publisher | Palladium Books Inc. | Mythmere Games |
| 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. | Players who want a clean, flexible retroclone of original-style fantasy for old-school dungeon crawling and sandbox campaigns that grow into domain play. |
| 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. | Every character uses a single saving throw number modified by class, replacing the five-category save table of the games it emulates. Combat supports both ascending and descending Armor Class with parallel to-hit rules, so groups can use modern or original-style math from one book. Name-level characters can clear and hold wilderness to found strongholds, with random-castle and freehold rules turning late play into domain management. |
| 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. | Character death comes fast at low levels, where first-level hit points are often low enough for a single hit to be lethal. Spellcasters prepare a fixed list of spells in advance and expend each on casting, with no flexible at-will magic. Many situations are resolved by Referee ruling rather than codified procedure. |