Rifts vs Twilight Sword
Compare Rifts and Twilight Sword side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Rifts | Twilight Sword | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | JRPG, Heroic, Beginner-Friendly, Theater of the Mind, Inventory Management, Journey, Random Tables |
| 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 d12 against one of eight Abilities and score equal to or under it to succeed, so low rolls are good. A 1 is always a critical success and a 12 always a critical failure, whatever the Ability score. Modifiers shift the target by up to 3 in either direction. Advantage rolls 2d12 and keeps the lower result, while Disadvantage keeps the higher. |
| Dice | d20, d100 | d12 |
| Complexity | Very High | Medium |
| Accessibility | Medium | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Proprietary (third-party license pending) |
| 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. | Two Little Mice / Free League Publishing |
| Year | 2005 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English, Italian |
| 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 the feel of JRPG and adventure video games at the table, with a core roll simple enough to teach newcomers. The low-lethality tone suits family or mixed-experience tables running long campaigns of travel and monster hunting. |
| 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. | Eight elements form a cycle where each beats the next, so picking an element against a monster's affinity is a puzzle rather than a flat damage bonus. A monster's Threat rating sets both how many the party should face and how many turns it takes each round, letting one number carry encounter balance and battlefield pacing. Advancement runs off a shared Hope track earned by completing deeds, tying character growth to how much of the world the party has restored. |
| 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. | Defeated Champions are knocked out rather than killed, and permanent death exists only as an optional rule the table must agree to before play begins. Cooking and brewing each require assembling a dice pool from gathered ingredients and reading it against a tiered effect table, a separate procedure from core resolution. Combat positioning uses four abstract ranges rather than measured distances, and the optional battle-map conversion is a short note rather than a developed ruleset. |