What Is The Ideal Set Of Dice For 3e/Pathfinder/4e?

[Chris Knapp]

For 4E, class & level determine number of dice needed. Classes with high [W] or fixed die attacks as well as high level magic items that deal extra dice upon a critical hit will want to have more of those dice on hand. Personally, I keep on hand the maximum I'd be expected to roll in a normal session.

My Fighter occasionally needs to roll up to 3 d12's at once so I keep 3 in my bag. Other than that, I keep a few d20's (so one can go in "timeout" when it rolls low) My friend's drow rogue sometimes rolls up to 6 d6's and little of anything else so his bag is more limited. My high level shaman rolls all kinds of dice so I need a bunch of everything when I play him.

I play a lot of LFR and it can get frustrating playing higher tier mods with players who still only have their "basic" set of 7 dice they picked up in the little plastic cubes sold at FLGS's.

Another thing I started doing years ago was color coding my dice. Makes it a lot easier to tell them apart in the heat of battle:
d4 -white
d6 - red
d8 - grey
d10 - blue
d12 - black
d20's - mixed so when I do multi-target attacks, I can say "Red for this guy, orange for that guy, etc",

 

[DragonLancer]

My PF dice bag has:

1x D20.
1x D12.
2x D10 (tens and units).
1x D8.
4x D6.
5x D4.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Why are there two threads on this? http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...d-3rd-edition-pathfinder-d-d-4th-edition.html

 

[Kaodi]

Olgar --> Odd. I had accidentally hit enter while editting the title before, and was fearing that I would have to go and edit quickly so it made any sense. But when the page came back up, it was still the post a topic page, not the thread page, so I had (mistakenly, apparently) thought that nothing had in fact happened.

 

[Kaodi]

Could a moderator perhaps merge this thread with the other one with the nearly identical title I made? It was an odd case of double posting...

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I guy I know is picking up 4th Edition soon, and asked how many dice he should bring.

I recommended my standard D&D rollout of three sets of d20, d12, d10 (Percent), d10, d8, d6, d4.

This allows you to roll almost everything you'll run into for awhile without rerolling any dice, and additionally allows you to trade off a d20 for another if it's having a bad day.

 

[Umbran]

Could a moderator perhaps merge this thread with the other one with the nearly identical title I made? It was an odd case of double posting...

Done.

Note: if you post a request like this IN the thread, you'll have to hope a moderator reads your thread and sees the post. We make no guarantees that we read everything, so it could mean your request will go unfulfilled.

There's a little icon at the bottom left of each post - a triangle with an exclamation point in it. This is the "report a post" button, which will send a notice to the mods that something might need attention. That's far more likely to get our attention and get your issue addressed.

 

[OnlineDM]

I'm going to chime in to agree that it depends on the character. When I sit down to play, I pull out the dice that I need. I figure out the maximum number of each die I could need at one time (4e characters here) by going through my character sheet and looking at my powers.

For the Bard I ran at last night's game, I pulled out:
-3d20 (for variety - I only ever need one at a time)
-4d6 (for the situation where I would use my 2[W] attack with my once-per-encounter Sneak Attack from my Rogue multiclass)
-3d8 (damage dice on my daily power)

That particular character doesn't have any powers that use d4s, d10s or d12s, so I left those in my dice box.

The previous night, I ran a pre-gen Mage at D&D Encounters, so my dice needs were different (brought out the d4s, for instance).

As for what to own for 4e, I would say at a bare minimum:
-2d20 (in case you play an Avenger)
-4d4 (for 2[W] attacks with a 2d4 weapon)
-6d6
-6d8
-2d10
-2d12

But ultimately, I'm a fan of "more than enough of each type of die" of course.

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, it really varies.

For the Barbarian I played last night I needed a couple of d20s (one needed punished), 7d12, 2d10, 2d6 and a d4.

When I play my Swordmage I need a couple of d20s, 2d10, 3d8, and a d6.

 

[Dannager]

Four of each basic die type.