Tuesday, May 5, 2015

30 Days of D&D Day 5: Your Favorite Set of Dice/individual die

Favorite die or dice is an interesting question. Some gamers are very superstitious about their dice. We met somebody once who was affronted if another person deigned to touch his polyhedral pieces of plastic. Don't get me wrong; anything that's a repetitive ritual gets superstitious attachments to it, whether you mean to or not. While at the table, and my die is "in repose", I set it down 20 up, regardless of what die I'm using. Maybe it's a mental thing; I think positive, I think 20, I roll higher (you want to roll higher, typically). Maybe it's a physics thing; the plastic settles so the side opposite the 20 is heavier, and rolls higher. Regardless. It's a thing I do. It doesn't mean I don't have dice I lend to people.


But anyway. My favorite set of dice is probably the translucent pinkish rough cut set I bought before GameScience went out of business. "Rough cut" meaning the dice have distinct and clue-cut edges. Some dice sets produced by companies have far more rounded edges, and they roll more like a ball than a die; I have a red Crystal Caste (or is it Chessex?) dice set wherein the D20 is practically round.




My favorite individual die is a purple marbled D20 with a swirl that passes through the 20. It's the primary die I used playing my fighter in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (I say "primary" because fighters in 3rd edition, 3.5, and Pathfinder get a second attack at level 6, so I'd just roll two dice for first and second attacks, and so on. I was rolling 4 dice by the time we were done). I've rolled many many 20's on that die, including the three in a row which killed a fellow player character. I'm not sorry. He was possessed by an evil ghost at the time and about to kill a party member I cared more about than him.

(and that was my first player kill)




I'm actually currently using the purple die for a ranger I'm playing on Mondays. And I've rolled two or three 20's there as well (when it's an attack, that's referred to as a "critical hit", which deals more damage than your regular attack would).

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