Dice Bag Composition


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


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How many of each dice do you keep in your dice bag?

I'm trying to optimize my dice bag that I travel with and use from the literally hundreds of dice I have in a small chest in my game room. I tend to GM a lot of games, so this is what I normally keep in there:

5d4 (for Magic Missile)
10d6 (for Fireball)
4d8
4d10
3d12
5d20 (for rolling multiple monster attacks in one go)
2d100

This seems to handle the vast majority of situations that arise with having to scoop up and roll the same dice more than once to resolve a single action, as well as making it easy to find a d12 blindly when you randomly need one.

Anyone else give this any amount of thought?


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More or less what you have but 5d8 for damaging cleric spells such as holy smite or searing light.


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If I had the dice I'd carry something like that, but at least 5d8 (like Gauss said and for Breath of Life) and 8d4 for scythe crits. Also an extra of everything to loan out to new/forgetful players for an evening. I also have a couple dice-roller apps for if I get into a truly ridiculous situation (I've needed 18+d6 with some sneak attack full attacks, and once with a chainsaw barbarian drifting several times in a round). Not a huge fan of them, but its easier than waiting 5 minutes rerolling dice and adding things up.


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You could also ditch the 2d100 and just roll 2d10 (one is the 10's column and the other is the 1's column). Since you have 4d10 in there you already have enough to roll 2d100 with d10 dice.


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I have roughly those numbers in the box of dice I use to GM with. IIRC, it's a mix of 4 polyhedral sets (one of which had 4d6) plus some extra d20.

My dice collection for PFS fits into two Altoids tins, and consists of two polyhedral sets plus extras of a few dice types: 7d20 (I change often if they'll rolling poorly!), 2d12, 4d10, 2d% (the 10's die), 5d8 (for cures and such), 6d6, and 3d4.


5 polyhedral sets, minus the d%, plus an extra 5d20 so I can switch around when they roll shitty.


3d4, 6d6, 3d8, 4d10, 2d12, 4d20. But they're only 3rd level so I don't need much.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Multiple dice sets, plus multiple d6 sets, then some extra non-caltrop d4s and some d3s.


I have about five complete sets (mostly for guests or players who forget theirs, then I have my set that's standard except with two extra d6 as a holdover from early character generation. I also have a mixed bag that has 3d8 (for d20 star wars), 4d4 (honestly can't recall why), and 5d20 (used to roll initiative and attacks for groups of enemies).

Another player has a box full of dice, including 30d6 that he got to roll empowered disintegrate in one game.

Edit: I forget the 3d5 I got for stat rolling, and the 50 or so d10 I have for WoD.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Multiple dice sets, plus multiple d6 sets, then some extra non-caltrop d4s and some d3s.

When you say non-caltrop, what kind do you mean? I've really wanted to try the 3d printed ones that look kind of like a moebius strip, but I'm not sure if they're worth the price.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

This style.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
This style.

Oh. I have d10 like that. They never stop rolling unless they hit something. I'm sure the d4 style are better though, having less faces.


I recently was gifted a bag of devouring - while looking nice it also came with a huge set of dice which seem to roll well for me.

It came with (and holds) 20 complete sets :)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Scythia wrote:
I'm sure the d4 style are better though, having less faces.

We like to call them 'safety d4s' after one of our players headdesked his regular ones and caused himself to bleed.

One of my two bags has 4 sets of the complete seven, one set of the complete seven with extra d6s, 14 extra d6s, 3 actual d3s (not six siders), and 10 of those non-caltrops.

Silver Crusade

I just replaced my dice bag yesterday, since the bag itself was getting worn down and had a small hole in it.

It contains 5 complete sets (without the extra d% 10 sided), each in a different color. I also have a larger (golf ball sized) purple Paizo d20. And I'm up to 9 souvenir d6's from various conventions, with the 6 replaced by a convention logo.

On the side, I also carry 36 (?) small d6's in their original plastic box. Those are good for high level blasting and Shadowrun, which I've actually only played a couple of times, but would be interested to get into more in the future.


martryn wrote:
How many of each dice do you keep in your dice bag?

Far more than I have any legitimate reason to have at one time.

(Seriously, I have at least a dozen d20's in there, for example.)

Verdant Wheel

Colors.

Make sure your dice, in roughly the proportions you mentioned, have the right colors.


I have 8 sets selected as 4 different colors with 2 sets each for now. And I am just a player. When I come around to GM or get to level 10, I'd probably get another 2 sets in a 5th color for an even 70 dice total.

If I had multiple attacks, I would probably have a cheat sheet that says "Blue, Green, Black, Gold" so I could keep track of the haste attacks + iteratives, or else which monster has which dice.

Silver Crusade

I keep a full set in a small container inside the bag, then I have a metric butt-ton of assorted dice, mostly d6, d8, and d10. Though of late I've been using an RNG more than anything.


Hello. My name is Gino and I'm a dicaholic.

My normal gaming bag has color-coded sets of dice. Each set has between 3 and 6 distinct 7-sets in the same base color. As well as a handful of handy dice. I try to add at least 1d2, 1d3, 1d<compass> and 1d<friend|foe> to each set.

I currently keep red, green, blue, purple, orange, white, black, grey, yellow, rainbow, speckled and copper in my bag.

I was quite proud of my self for only taking a single set to Origins last week. White with rainbow numbers. That and my souvenir dice served all week.


Currently in Haladir's dice bag...


  • My set of 6 clear acrylic sharp-edged polyhedral dice from 1983. (Yellow d20, blue d12, green d10, orange d8, red d6, clear d4; all numbers still filled in with white crayon)
  • one set of 7 "Rise of the Runelords" dice
  • one set of 4 Fate dice (transluscent blue-green)
  • a pair of Las Vegas casino dice
  • Four black d6 with white pips
  • A set of blue opaque percentile dice.
  • a few additional oddball dice (a pair of d4s, a green d8, a pipped d8, a black d20, a black Vampire: The Masquerade d10 with a rose for the "1", and probably a couple more that I'm not remembering.

Verdant Wheel

Hello Gino.


MrCharisma wrote:
You could also ditch the 2d100 and just roll 2d10 (one is the 10's column and the other is the 1's column). Since you have 4d10 in there you already have enough to roll 2d100 with d10 dice.

I use a d20 and a d10. The d20 is larger, so is the 10s and the d10 is smaller, so is the 1s. Use matching colors, so if you need multiple d100, you can use each colored pair for a d100.

/cevah


Depends on the game, I have three main dice bags.

Most d20 games use the following:
1) 2d20's (Advantage/Disadvantage), 1d12, 2d10's, 10d6 (normal sized dice), 20d6 (for big Empowered spells), 10d8 (Cleric spells), 5d4 (Scythe, Magic Missile).

Also have a series of special coloured d6's I use for Banes and Boons in Shadow of the Demon Lord.

2) Shadowrun (and other d6 Games, such as Tri Stat... Quiet I still use it.)
30d6's to spread around for people who don't have, count ammo, mark locations, etc.

3) Call of Cthulhu
Lots of d10's and percentile.

Colours are important though!
For major characters I'm playing I buy a set of dice and sub in those dice (like the d20's); if they're bubbled or bad the character's natural (in universe) luck is bubbled and bad. Its the way it falls.

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