D&D 30 Day Challenge, Day 5 - Favorite Set of Dice?
This one is easy! My favorite dice sets at the moment are from Goodman Games, designed specifically for use with the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG (a retroclone - of sorts - of D&D), but they would work well with D&D too! These are called Hugh's Weird Dice and Shanna's Weird Dice:
Why do I love these dice? Aside from being aesthetically pleasing (especially Shanna's black-and-gold dice!), they have the "weird" dice needed for DCC RPG's "dice chain" mechanic, including d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24, and d30. This supplements the "standard" D&D dice of d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, and d%.
The thing is, Gamers today consider the "standard" D&D set to be . . . well, standard. Gamers today will rarely - if ever - understand the absolute wonder and excitement of using anything other than a d6! In the 70s and 80s, when I was growing up, no one I knew had ever even seen a die that wasn't a d6. I got my D&D Basic Set (the Mentzer "Red Box") and it came with polyhedral dice! Everything in the "standard" set except the d% (to roll percentiles, you rolled the d10 twice). These polyhedral dice were funky. They were weird. Heck, D&D players even had their own lingo (that has since become Gamer "standard" - calling a four-sided die a "d4" and so forth.
So now Dungeons & Dragons is on its 5th edition, and the standard set by D&D has prevailed - D&D still uses the polyhedral dice. But DCC RPG uses "weird dice" or "funky dice" for its "dice chain" - and it's like opening my Red Box for the first time, all over again! For someone who has been using polyhedral dice for 30 years, it takes a lot to bring back the magical feeling of wonder inspired by those weird dice that were in my Red Box! The DCC dice did!
I love funky dice.
ReplyDeleteI have 6 sets of d3, d4, d5, d6, d7, d8, d9, d10, d11, d12, d14, d16, d18, d20, d22, d24 and d30. And I also own a d60. And I have 10 sets (instead of 6) for some of these dice (d6, d8 and d10).
Fortunatelly, D&D 5e present us with many ways to introduce funky dice in the game (at least, some of them). Here are some examples that I've found:
*** BARD ***
Levell / Bardic Inspiration
1-2............d6..........
3-4............d7..........
5-7............d8..........
8-9............d9..........
10-12..........d10.........
13-14..........d11.........
15+............d12.........
Level / Song of Rest
2-5..........d6.....
6-8..........d7.....
9-10.........d8.....
11-12........d9.....
13-14........d10....
15-16........d11....
17+..........d12....
*** FIGHTER (BATTLE MASTER) ***
Level / Superiority Die
3-6...........d8.......
7-9...........d9.......
10-13.........d10......
14-17.........d11......
18+...........d12......
*** MONK ***
Level / Martial Arts
1-2..........d4.....
3-4..........d5.....
5-7..........d6.....
8-10.........d7.....
11-13........d8.....
14-16........d9.....
17+..........d10....
Level / Proficiency Bonus / Proficiency Die
1-2............+2.............1d3 (Avg. 2)
3-4............+2.............1d4 (Avg. 2.5)
5-6............+3.............1d5 (Avg. 3)
7-8............+3.............1d6 (Avg. 3.5)
9-10...........+4.............1d7 (Avg. 4)
11-12..........+4.............1d8 (Avg. 4.5)
13-14..........+5.............1d9 (Avg. 5)
15-16..........+5.............1d10(Avg. 5.5)
17-18..........+6.............1d11(Avg. 6)
19-20..........+6.............1d12(Avg. 6.5)
As you can see, it's easy to use the Funky Dice in D&D 5e if you use the optional rule of Proficiency Die (DMG, p. 263). You can also use them in the special dice of the Bard, Fighter (Battle Master) and Monk. Take a look and share your opinion.