How many dice

[Whit]

Hello.
If I have space for 20 dice. How many of each should I have.
D20 x2 of different color for adv/disadvantage
D12 x2 ?
D10 2-5 ? Should One be the % or all 1-10
D8. 2-5?
D6. 5-10
D4. X2 ?
I was thinking 2d20, 2d12, 5d10, 2d8, 6d6, 3d4?
Thanks

[Sam113097]

I would say that you'll need more d20s, d8s and d6s than anything else. Most weapons, Sneak Attack, Smite, and tons of spells use either d8 or d6, and its always nice to have a few extra d20s. You'll probably only ever need 3 d10s or d12s at most.

[SpikeFightwicky]

More d20s. If you cycle out the bad luck ones that are rolling low that session, you need replacements.

[DeadMech]

Depends on what you play. You only need one of each and even that's debatable. The rest just being convenience. If you are slinging fireballs you want a handful of d6's as example.

I'm thoroughly amused that you are limiting yourself to 20 dice. I know people who would act like I was making them give up their baby if I tried to make them set a reasonable limit on dice.


More d20s. If you cycle out the bad luck ones that are rolling low that session, you need replacements.

Superstitious nonsense. If you believe a die is unlucky then float it in salt water to check it's not mis-weighted from manufacturer defect and check the edges for uneven rounding from excessive wear and tear.

[Misterwhisper]

Depends on what you play. You only need one of each and even that's debatable. The rest just being convenience. If you are slinging fireballs you want a handful of d6's as example.

I'm thoroughly amused that you are limiting yourself to 20 dice. I know people who would act like I was making them give up their baby if I tried to make them set a reasonable limit on dice.



Superstitious nonsense. If you believe a die is unlucky then float it in salt water to check it's not mis-weighted from manufacturer defect and check the edges for uneven rounding from excessive wear and tear.

I have always had horrid luck when it comes to dice actually rolling.

Some responses my group gave.

You are rolling wrong, you should cup it in your hand and kind of flip it out.

Those must be book dice.

Maybe they are cup dice.

It is because you believe you are going to roll low.

You shake them too much before you roll.

Get a rolling tray, it helps.

It is karma from doing so much backstory and character work that it won’t roll well to make up for it.

Are they one color or multi colored? Oh, that is the problem, never use multicolored dice.

Spin it the other way when you roll it.

None of those were as a joke either and they throughly it was odd that I did not take them seriously.

Another reason I don’t game with stoners anymore.

[ImproperJustice]

Is this some kind of trick question?

You can never, ever, have enough dice.


Also, don’t listen to that last feller’ and his disparaging remarks about dice cyclin’

It is well known fact that every d20 is only loaded with so many natural 20s at the start of each session and once they are used up, you are in trouble and need Fresh 20s.

Likewise. Some dice are just plain bad. Cursed even. If you don’t identify and separate them early, their bad energy will spread to the rest of your dice bag and possibly even other players.

If you let it go too far, you may become dice cursed yourself and harm all dice you touch with cursed energy.

Should it come to that. The only remedy is to obtain a fresh set of dice, sprinkle them over Gary Gygax’s grave, and then make contact with the dice in ascending order ending with the d20.
This is the only way to reset the luck of both yourself and your dice.

After that, you should be good to go.

[Vogie]

It really depends on the class and build.

Elvish Accuracy users regularly need 3d20s
Rogues and Fireball users like lots of d6s
Crossbow Fighters and Warlocks get a lot of use out of d10s in comparison to other classes.
Barbarians get a lot of use out of d12s.

[Laserlight]

4d20--so you can roll 2 attacks, with Advantage, at the same time
2d12
2d10
4d8
8d6--fireball dice
2d4

That's 22 but really, a limit of only 20 dice? I have well over 150d6 alone.

[Keravath]

It depends on how many you roll at once. You can get away with one of each but it isn't as convenient. Lots of dice is convenience and efficiency not necessity.

That said ... look at what uses dice and if you might play it, try to have the dice on hand. Also, if you go for efficiency and roll all your dice at once then you want more. For example, a level 11 warlock casting eldritch blast with advantage on a hexed target might want to roll all attacks at the same time to be efficient. This requires 6d20, 3d10 and 3d6. The same with elven advantage would need 9d20. A sneak attacking level 17 rogue rolls 9d6 regularly. A wizard casting fireball is 8d6. An upcast magic missile could be 5+ d4 depending on whether you interpret the rules to be one die repeated or Nd4 rolled. If you wanted to roll all the attacks from scorching ray at the same time that is 3d20 and 6d6. If you are attacking a hexed target it becomes 3d20+9d6. An upcast fireball adds a d6 for each level so you can easily get up to 12d6 with a level 7 fireball (which comes from a Staff of the Magi). Cone of cold is d8s.

d10s and d12s are less commonly used in bulk though Toll the Dead at 17th level is 4d12 and firebolt or EB is 4d10.

On the other hand, you don't have to roll everything at once, you can roll one attack at a time in which case you need at least 3d20 to cover elven advantage (maybe 6d20), 4d10, 4d12, 8d8, 12d6, 4d4 to cover most of the options up into tier 3.

[HouseRules]

High die as low die.
How to reduce the dice you carry.

d20 as d10

1-2 = 1
3-4 = 2
5-6 = 3
7-8 = 4
9-10 = 5
11-12 = 6
13-14 = 7
15-16 = 8
17-18 = 9
19-20 = 10


d20 as d5

1-4 = 1
5-8 = 2
9-12 = 3
13-16 = 4
17-20 = 5


d20 as d4

1-5 =1
6-10 = 2
11-15 = 3
16-20 = 4


d12 as d6

1-2 = 1
3-4 = 2
5-6 = 3
7-8 = 4
9-10 = 5
11-12 = 6


d12 as d4

1-3 = 1
4-6 = 2
7-9 = 3
10-12 = 4



d12 as d3

1-4 = 1
5-8 = 2
9-12 = 3


d8 as d4

1-2 = 1
3-4 = 2
5-6 = 3
7-8 = 4

[Chronos]

I don't think any of my past three characters have ever needed even one d12. I can't imagine what you'd want two for. Which is a shame, because the d12 is the most geometrically versatile: You can use a Platonic dodecahedron, or a rhombic one, or a pyritohedron, or a triakis tetrahedron, or a tetartoid, or a bipyramid or deltohedron.

The d4 is also relatively rarely used. You might occasionally need one for a healing potion, Bless, or Guidance, but unless you use Vicious Mockery or Magic Missile a lot, you won't need more than one.

The d20 is sort of the opposite of the d12: It's used all the time (even if you don't usually need very many at once), but its geometry has almost no freedom. It's got a symmetry group six times larger than it needs, but you can only reduce that by a factor of 2 before it becomes unfair.

[DeadMech]

Another thing I like to keep in mind about dice is color. Having a color theme to the dice you bring to a table can help players keep track of whose dice belong to who.

On the other hand having variations in shade and marbling can help as well. I like to roll all dice at once but some dice might be different damage types so calling which color represents which damage type can be useful in the case of resistances. It may be useful to call other specific bonuses.

[Dessunri]

I forget exactly how many of each die is in the set; but, I picked up two sets of "Dice of Rolling" when they had a Kickstarter a while back. It's great for DM dice as well as player dice. Each size of die is color coded so it's very easy to grab just what you need when you need it. I know there are 2 D20s per set and something like 8D6 so when I show up with both my sets I have plenty of dice for the night and, like I said, easily color coded so I can quickly grab the size die I need without fumbling around. I have a dice tray with a space on top for all my loose dice and a large rolling section. I found I don't take up that much space at the table with my tray, PHB (under the tray), and character sheet.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

The number of dice is dependent on what you commonly roll for your class/weapons/spells. In general 2d20 is sufficient, I've never known someone who needed more than 2 d12 or d10 plus a percentile die. I'd usually have 2-4 d8, 4 d6 (x2 if Rogue or caster w/Fireball or similar), and 2 d4 (x2 if caster w/Magic missile or similar). You should be able to get what you need for 20 dice.



Superstitious nonsense. If you believe a die is unlucky then float it in salt water to check it's not mis-weighted from manufacturer defect and check the edges for uneven rounding from excessive wear and tear.

You're the superstitious one here. We all know that barbaric tradition that holds if a d20 floats in salt water then it's a witch and needs to be burned immediately. The rest of us are just a little stitious so we rotate dice instead of burning them. We're not savages.

[Zhorn]

Is this some kind of trick question?

You can never, ever, have enough dice.
As a dice goblin, I approve
https://pics.me.me/ad-luna-et-rursus-human-brain-you-don-t-need-anymore-dice-goblin-39467421.png

Likewise. Some dice are just plain bad. Cursed even. If you don’t identify and separate them early, their bad energy will spread to the rest of your dice bag and possibly even other players.

If you let it go too far, you may become dice cursed yourself and harm all dice you touch with cursed energy.

Should it come to that. The only remedy is to obtain a fresh set of dice, sprinkle them over Gary Gygax’s grave, and then make contact with the dice in ascending order ending with the d20.
This is the only way to reset the luck of both yourself and your dice.

After that, you should be good to go.
Unless you are aflicted with the dice curse yourself, in which case more extreme measures will need to be taken...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0uKDH0U75E

It is well known fact that every d20 is only loaded with so many natural 20s at the start of each session and once they are used up, you are in trouble and need Fresh 20s.
Common misconception. Dice look to behave that way, but the reasoning is bad-luck is sticky.
If a person with a dice curse touches good dice, those dice go bad.
Bad dice touching other bad dice, those dice go bad also.
Person touching curse dice, the person picks up the curse.

Bad luck is a a mix of karma, balanced equal opposite reactions, and black magic.
The Karmic aspect is some good people just naturally generate enough good luck to override the bad luck of a dice curse.
The balance is every good roll loads dice with bad rolls
The black magic is bad luck doesn't generate good luck for dice. The psychic resonance frequency of the unnatural materials/form blocks then from interacting with luck-balancing the same way as living creatures do.
The end result is dice just build up an excess of bad luck over time until they get to being 'cursed'.
Good news is until they get to curse levels of bad luck; regular bad luck evaporate over time. Having lots of dice allows you to cycle dice regularly and keep bad luck levels low enough to allow it to naturally evaporate away.
But if a cursed dice ends up in your dice bag, all the dice can easily turn bad :smallfrown:

[Naanomi]

3d20 for Elven accuracy

[Zhorn]

For an example of a dice curse....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD48krT1ijs

But on topic, 20 dice is still better than 7, but will never be enough for 5e games.

d20's x3
Percentile d10 x1
d12's x5
d10's x5
d8's x5
d6's x8
d4's x5

Total: 32 dice
Double that if you have to handle late game crits regularly.

[nickl_2000]

Roll all the dice you currently have, then sum the total.

That is how many more dice you need.


(Only posting this since there have been lots of good answers already)

[Zeikin]

*snip*
It is well known fact that every d20 is only loaded with so many natural 20s at the start of each session and once they are used up, you are in trouble and need Fresh 20’s.

I find I can usually get a few extra 20’s out of a depleted die by punishing it appropriately. Freezing it in an ice cube tray is my go to method.

[LordEntrails]

For a couple of decades now, when I buy a new set of dice, I buy 2 of each type, and 4 d6's. It has served me well.

[Chronos]

A few years back, my DM gave all his players a set of dice molded out of chocolate. I used each one until it gave me a poor roll in some critical situation, then ate it. Pour encourager les autres.

DeadMech, nobody ever mistakes my dice for anyone else's.

[Kane0]

4d20
1d12
2d10
4d8
8d6
1d4

If you like to live dangerously, drop the d12 for another d4

[DarkKnightJin]

I don't know how set you are on exactly 20 dice to have.
If you aren't dead set on *EXACTLY* 20, Insuggest just getting 3 sets, which brings you to 21 dice

[Zhorn]

I don't know how set you are on exactly 20 dice to have.
If you aren't dead set on *EXACTLY* 20, Insuggest just getting 3 sets, which brings you to 21 dice

*counts out 175 dice*
Some folks are more restrained than others :smalltongue:

[Laserlight]

suggest just getting 3 sets, which brings you to 21 dice

That's not enough to cast Fireball

[qube]

2d4 8d6 5d8 3d10 1d12 2d20

healing potion,
fireball,
decent smite with a longsword,
d%,
a d12, my favorit die
2d20 or (dis)advantage

For 25: I'd add a 2d20 (if one rolls bad, or if you preroll 2 attacks with advantage) 2d10 (d10 spell) 1d8

For 30: I'd add 2d4 (greater healing potion), 1d10, 2d20

[Chronos]

To everyone saying you need 8d6 because of Fireball, what if your character can also cast Lightning Bolt? You obviously can't use fire dice to cast Lightning Bolt, nor electrical dice to cast Fireball.

And using either for a shortsword or shortbow is clearly Right Out.

[Maelynn]

If I have space for 20 dice. How many of each should I have.

Your biggest issue is your dice bag. Get yourself a better dice bag, then look at the other comments to see which dice are important to have more of than the 3 you get when you buy 3 poly sets.

[LtPowers]

Interesting that everyone's been citing fireball for their d6 needs and not sneak attack.

I have two sets of polyhedrals, a third d20, and whole mess of d6s from when I played WEG Star Wars. It's served me well, though rolling for a potion of superior healing is annoying.


Powers &8^]

[nickl_2000]

Its highly dependent on what you are playing. A fighter only needs a limited at of dice and will spend most of its time rolling the same thing.

A rogue needs a whole mess of d6s.
A monk needs at least one of each die.
Wizards and Sorcerers need everything.

2 full sets of dice, with a few extra d6s will cover most of your needs. If you need more for something, you can roll a again or borrow a few from someone else.


Don't ever bother with a d30 or d100, they are a waste of money.

[False God]

Whenever this question crosses my mind, I just pretend I'm a dragon and the answer becomes clear.

All of them.

All of the dice.

----

Seriously though I recommend two polyhedral sets and one of those little boxes of d6.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

Your biggest issue is your dice bag. Get yourself a better dice bag, then look at the other comments to see which dice are important to have more of than the 3 you get when you buy 3 poly sets.

And if you can't find a bigger dice bag you can always use the Giant's Wallet. You just need to kill 30 Gold Skulltulas and take the tokens to that guy in Kakariko village. It holds 500 Rupees, so that's at least 2,000 dice if my math is right.

[DarkKnightJin]

*counts out 175 dice*
Some folks are more restrained than others :smalltongue:

I've got 10 sets of polydice, and I use 4 full sets per session.
Gives me everything I need at any given time.

[Nagog]

Depends on what you play. You only need one of each and even that's debatable. The rest just being convenience. If you are slinging fireballs you want a handful of d6's as example.

I'm thoroughly amused that you are limiting yourself to 20 dice. I know people who would act like I was making them give up their baby if I tried to make them set a reasonable limit on dice.


I have a huge bag of 100+ dice, but ever since I bought a set of metal dice, I mostly use the bag as dice for players who don't won/forgot their own. It helps that the metal dice are fun. My table jokes that my dice are sentient magic items, but whatever sentience controls them is a d*ck so they're only lucky when doing stupid bull crap stuff. XD

[Keravath]

Interesting that everyone's been citing fireball for their d6 needs and not sneak attack.

I have two sets of polyhedrals, a third d20, and whole mess of d6s from when I played WEG Star Wars. It's served me well, though rolling for a potion of superior healing is annoying.


Powers &8^]

You’ll note that we didn’t specify where the d6 come from :)

For example, my d6s come from
A couple of d&d sets, BattleTech card game, Advanced Squad Leader (though it could have been original Squad Lesder or its expansions), Star Fleet battles and maybe a set from Traveller .. so I might have 12d6 or more but they come from all over. The other dice types though are almost exclusively D&D :)

[Chronos]

Almost all of the dice I use anymore are ones I've made myself (except for one of the two d20s I roll for advantage, because I've only made one d20 so far).

I do have a d30 (that I made myself), just because it's cool. But the quality is poor, so it's probably a good thing that I've yet to find an actual use for it.

The downside to making one's own dice is that they're a lot more expensive than mass-produced ones, so my collection is a lot smaller.

[Zhorn]

I've got 10 sets of polydice, and I use 4 full sets per session.
Gives me everything I need at any given time.

I have my dice split into 3 bags.
One has 5 sets and all the d6's from the other sets, and the other two are an even split of the remainder.
In most games I only take out the primary bag, but the other two are in my backpack in case any of the other players forgot to bring dice (except the paladin, he's dice cursed real bad :smallfrown: )
Usually after the game when I'm double checking I have all my dice before I leave, I'll rotate what sets are in the primary bag so all my dice are getting a use every few weeks.

[DarkKnightJin]

I have my dice split into 3 bags.
One has 5 sets and all the d6's from the other sets, and the other two are an even split of the remainder.
In most games I only take out the primary bag, but the other two are in my backpack in case any of the other players forgot to bring dice (except the paladin, he's dice cursed real bad :smallfrown: )
Usually after the game when I'm double checking I have all my dice before I leave, I'll rotate what sets are in the primary bag so all my dice are getting a use every few weeks.

I've got my d20's in my Elderwood Academy dice box. I paid good money for that thing, and I use it as my rolling tray.
The rest of my dice are in a big dicebag. And I have a 'small' leather dicebag where I keep the d20's I don't use that session, so I don't have to pick them from the main bag afterwards.
It's working for me. And my Paladin seems to be #Blessed. Seriously. That DM has a houserule that you can get a feat alongside the ASI that everybody gets at 4th, 8th, etc. Only restriction is that you have a story reason that expands your character for him to approve it.
My Paladin was literally untouched in an encounter that killed the Ranger dead. I joked that he was Lucky. The DM said that if my character *remains* lucky until 8th level, I'd get to pick it as my 'free feat'.
And he's well on his way to earning himself the feat at this point..

[Zeikin]

Your biggest issue is your dice bag. Get yourself a better dice bag, then look at the other comments to see which dice are important to have more of than the 3 you get when you buy 3 poly sets.

This actually false. One of my players uses a washed out hungry man plastic tray wrapped in tin foil... so even his dice bag is too small, he could opt for that rout... it also serves as a dice tray. And yes, the pun was intentional, but I refuse to own it since he was the original author.

[sithlordnergal]

It really does depend on the class you're using. If you use sneak attack or fireball, you'll want a ton of d6's.

If you're like me and play a Paladin that can dish out 30d8 from Smite damage alone...you might want to invest in some d8's

[Imbalance]

You should ask this guy:
Thread: Got any Dice Questions? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?50601-Got-any-Dice-Questions)


And if you can't find a bigger dice bag you can always use the Giant's Wallet. You just need to kill 30 Gold Skulltulas and take the tokens to that guy in Kakariko village. It holds 500 Rupees, so that's at least 2,000 dice if my math is right.

Just quoting this in tribute.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

Just quoting this in tribute.

Thank you fellow nerd. It's an honor!

[Misterwhisper]

I usually play or run with 10 d6s and 2 of each other one.

However my tackle box of dice is next to my chair just Incase people get uppity.

[Mordaedil]

4d20--so you can roll 2 attacks, with Advantage, at the same time
2d12
2d10
4d8
8d6--fireball dice
2d4

That's 22 but really, a limit of only 20 dice? I have well over 150d6 alone.

This guy has most of it right, the 4d20 is nice for doing double attacks, but if you play a character that can do more than 2 attacks, add more d20's as appropriate. 2d10 is required for a percentile roll, but I think you can manage with only 1d12. And it is okay if you forget it at home too, just don't tell the barbarian. d8's have gotten a lot more important so must bring a few, I'd say 8d6 for fireball is maybe a few short. Bring at least 28d6 in case you need to fireball a mummy using a level 9 spell. Or just get one of those crystal cases that is filled with tiny d6's and use that for mass damage rolls.

As for d4's, that is way too few. You need a bag full so that you can throw them out and use them as real life caltrops for when the DM leaves the room to get snacks.

[Chronos]

While two d10s (preferably with one marked 00-10-20...90) are used for rolling percentages... really, how often do you need to roll percentages? The DM might, for things like treasure and wandering monster tables, but there's almost nothing players do any more that calls for it. And, heck, in the odd case that you do, you can just roll a single d10, and then roll it again.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Superstitious nonsense. If you believe a die is unlucky then float it in salt water to check it's not mis-weighted from manufacturer defect and check the edges for uneven rounding from excessive wear and tear.

Wow, tough crowd here tonight :smallbiggrin:

[Zhorn]

Superstitious nonsense.
or... bad dice are bad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b47zsPzTLI

[Chronos]

You might also want to break out a micrometer. My first d20, I noticed early that it almost never rolled a natural 20, and very seldom a natural 1 (the only time I ever got a natural 20 out of it in an actual game situation was a 2nd edition proficiency check, where rolling low was good). I did hundreds of test rolls, recording the results, and verified that there was a highly statistically significant shortage of 1s and 20s. The saltwater test didn't show any irregularities, but a year or two ago, I finally got around to measuring it... and the diameter is a full millimeter greater (out of about 20 mm total) on the 1-20 axis than on the other axes.

[Whit]

Can you use the d100% die as a d10. it has 0-9 so the 0 =10 etc

[Chronos]

If you have only one ten-sided die, then it doesn't really matter whether it's a marked 00-90 or 0-9 (or 1-10). If you have one of each, then there's no reason to use the double-digit one for a roll of 1-10, instead of using the single-digit one.

If by "d100%", you mean a hundred-sided die like the Zocchihedron, then you shouldn't use it at all, because it's hard to read and horribly unfair (though if you can afford dice you won't use, I suppose you could buy it just to hoard it).