When comparing Eclipse Phase vs Savage Worlds, the Slant community recommends Savage Worlds for most people. In the question“What are the best sci fi-themed tabletop RPGs?” Savage Worlds is ranked 3rd while Eclipse Phase is ranked 5th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great setting
The setting, like everything about Eclipse Phase, is great.
It has depth and scope, offering a huge array of themes and prospects for adventure, though underlying it all is a noir, tragic feeling, both refined and raw. There´s no subterfuge or apologies. The world is violent, it´s deadly, it´s a tragic affair but one the beckons living. There´s a universe out there to discover but you have to look no further than your own habitat to find both light and darkness, and most of all shadow.
Pro High standard of quality
Production value and quality of each and every product is on par with the best, and far, far above your average RPG, even your classic "best sellers".
Pro Comprehensive and intuitive D100 system
The basic mechanics are easy and familiar but it offers a robust system that can deal with pretty much anything you can thrown at it.
Pro Fast-paced play
Pro Generic rule-set
The rules cater to multiple genres, and offer additional rules for GMs (or players) to create their own races, powers, etc.
Pro Companion books with expanded rules to support 4 major genres
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horrer, and Super Heroes. Each of which can be portrayed in a basic sense with only the core book.
Pro Classless
( Not a Class Based System ) This is also listed as a con, but it can be very refreshing to build you character from scratch. You can make whatever sort of archetype you like, and many are available pre configured for you.
Pro Easy to learn / teach
Pro General machanical similarities to d20, d6, and conventional RPGs
Cons
Con No combat rating guidelines
No guidelines exist in the game to advise the difficulty of combat encounters. It is generally assumed in the rules, that the opponents will be reasonably proportional to the narrative situation, and that players will use ingenuity, retreat and avoid combat, or muster the villagers into a militia using the rules for Extras (mooks) as necessary.
Con Medium complexity
Straddles the space between lightweight games like Fate, and heavyweight games like d20 System.
Con Classless
Characters are developed completely independently of any sort of D&D-esque class framework. This allows players to make more free-form characters, but as a result characters which are less focused may be generally weaker. The book does provide a number of "archtype" partial-builds, which can generally serve as an alternative to classes, and Savage Rifts offers the Iconic frameworks, which more closely resembles classes.