Many items/spells and such in the game do 1D3 or 1D4 damage (for example).

How is this handled in PnP?

I can't imagine how such a dice would look like?

So if a weapon does 1D4 dmg the dice rolls. Rolls are from 1-4.

So it`s acutally:

1x1 = 1 - critical miss
1x2 = 2
1x3 = 3
1x4 = 4 critical hit (double damage IIRC)

So when your roll 1d20, 20 is always a critical hit.

I would look for weapons in ShadowKeeper but I feel lazy.

[ 07-04-2004, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: Xen ]

1d4 would be a triangular pyramid, like this:
http://www.rightone.com.hk/details/99009.jpg

A 1d3 is impossible to have in real life - it defies the laws of physics. However, the computer can just randomly generate a number between 1 and 3, just like a dice roll. In real life, people would have to work something out. Maybe rolling a d6 and halving it?

[ 07-04-2004, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Jaradu ]

That's what is normally done. Ever wonder why there isn't a d5?

Cuz there's already too many die to keep up with? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Im curious, what determines how much damage an attack inflicts, for example a flaming potion says 2d4 fire damage or something like that, what does that mean? By the way dron cah, im a metallica fan too, but dont u think they're new song sucks?

Metallica is leaning towards SoaD in the past album, and topic-wise 2d4 means 2-8 fire damage.
If something did 3d6+5 it means 8-23 damage and so on. And remember it's better to have a +3 dagger than a +0 greatsword.

Thats almost exactly what i figured [img]smile.gif[/img]

But one thing bugs me. The D4, do you pick the side thats facing down? That feels wrong, but still the only way it can be done i supose.

B.T.W I'm a huge metallica fan too, but like many others, I mostly like the four first albums. I saw them live a month ago here in gothenburg, it was amazing!

I have a d3. It looks like a d4, only there are three numbers on each side. The idea is to use the number that falls flat in front of you.

Thats almost exactly what i figured [img]smile.gif[/img]

But one thing bugs me. The D4, do you pick the side thats facing down? That feels wrong, but still the only way it can be done i supose.

B.T.W I'm a huge metallica fan too, but like many others, I mostly like the four first albums. I saw them live a month ago here in gothenburg, it was amazing! </font>[/QUOTE]<font color=plum>You take the number that is at the "peak" of the pyramid. I agree it is very hard to "envision" what a D10, D12 or D20 look like if you've never seen them. My recommendation is to just go to eBay and Search for "AD&D dice". You will get LOTS of hits. Some offer 1lb bags of dice (which is FAR more than you would really need) and the others will offer a "set" of dice. A set typically consists of 7 dice: d4, d6, d8, d10 (marked with single digits 0-9), d12, d20 and d10 (marked with "10's" digits 00-90). This second d10 is used for rolling "percentiles" (such as a thief having 55% in Pickpockets - the DM would secretly roll the two d10 dice (with one die representing the "10's" digits and the other representing the single digit). If the number on the two dice is less than 55, the thief succeeds. If it is greater than 55, he gets caught.

The percentile dice and d20 are the ones used to determine the success or failure of almost every action your PnP character would attempt. If you're trying to attack or hit something, you would roll a d20. The higher the better. A 20 always hits (and is often considered a critical hit, doing extra damage) and a 1 always misses (even if you're 100th level fighter swinging a +1000 sword - you would still miss if you rolled a 1). For non-combat actions, the DM usually assigns a percentage chance for success. Sometimes he/she will roll the percentiles, and sometimes the player is allowed to roll the percentiles.

BTW, you don't have to actually BUY the dice of eBay. Just click on one of the "sets" and you'll get a nice picture showing you what all the dice look like.

{Editor's Note: This impromptu dissertation on the dice of PnP and their uses has been brought to you by a barbarian who suddenly realizes just HOW much older he is than most of the members here - since he had been playing PnP for several years before the 2nd Edition came out. [img]graemlins/blush.gif[/img] ) ;) </font>

I have a d3. It is six sided with a 1 where 6 would be, a 2 where 5 would be and a 3 where 4 would be.

First off, rock on, Cerek! I actually tried to field this question last night, but IW messed up on me! :grumble: Anyways, the other thing I need to mention is to Balintherlas: I'm not sure which song you're speaking of, but I disagree! [img]tongue.gif[/img] And, please, never utter such blasphemy in my presence, again! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I must say, I'm behind Balintherlas on this one. In fact, the whole album sucks, but thats just my opinion :D

Thanks for all the answers, I think I'll check E-bay. In the intrest of science. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Comment about how to read a d4: my old d4 had three numbers on each triangle face. You read the number that is facing up, at the base of the triangle; and it would be that same number at the base of all 3 triangle-sides that you could see. (The side facing the floor, and unreadable, would have 3 numbers on it, I believe none of those would be the number that you had rolled).

Comment about the physics of a d3: I realize this is not considered possible to make a fair three-sided. I was thinking about a walnut-shape, kind of a football shape, with three somewhat rounded sides. Perhaps with a flat indentation so it would come to a rest. On two sides it would have a point like a football, so it could not come to rest on these "sides". Would it be possible to make a 3-sided like this? Just wondering.

...you think too much, Hank [img]tongue.gif[/img]

This sounds exactly like a d4.
I can't figure out how it would work if the only numbers used were 1, 2, and 3.

Been pondering D&D dice for... *calculates number of years playing D&D*... over 15 years!

I think itd be kinda hard to make a legitimate 3-sided die with only 3 variables, actually impossible with the laws we hav now as jaradu said. Though if u could, maybe u could tell me why Metallica's new song "frantic" sucks so bad. Only a true fan wont lie to themselves and the band.

actually, their newest single is called "the unamed feeling", but anyways, it might be unfair to say it sucks, its just not like it used to be. Which in my opinion was so much better.

They used to be the best band in the world, and, in terms of music history they still are. Their newest contributions are however, in my opinion, not.

But enough of beeing politically correct [img]smile.gif[/img]
They rocked now they suck :D

[ 07-06-2004, 06:55 PM: Message edited by: bjorn ]

Well, whatever you all wish to say about the greatest band in the world [img]tongue.gif[/img] , please do it in the general discussion board, where this kind of c0onversation is appropriate. Thnx.

heh dices... my kind of thing [img]tongue.gif[/img]

the d4 is shaded like a tetrahedron (the 3 sided pyramid as Jaradu showed before. Theres different ways of reading it, it all depends on the dice you have in front of you. there are 2 mayor types of d4's the ones with the numbers on the bottom and the ones with the numbers on top

http://members.chello.nl/h.janssen63...n/image010.jpg

http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~don/dice...hite_black.jpg

d6's are normal cubes, and obviously the most commen type of dice

d8's are Octahedrons

d12's are Dodecahedrons and my personal favorites :D

d20's are Isocahedrons and most oftenly used in PnP DnD

then theres loads of odd sided dice (the previous 5 are the 5 only perfectly symmetrical regular solids there exist)

like the d10 and the d100 (also called the d%) for the d100 you need 2 dice as shown above

and recently one company has started producing a very special d100
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~don/dice...d100_black.jpg

last but not least i wanted to show you the infamous d3 (with very weird numbers on them but thats not my fault [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

http://members.chello.nl/h.janssen63...n/image003.jpg

I got these pictures off
http://members.chello.nl/h.janssen63/ and
http://www.kaejae-worx.com/~don/dice/index.htm


both are sites with huge dice collections. check them out if you wanna see more (like the d5, d7 and the d24)

also a very usefull site with one of the biggest collections in the world is

http://www.dicecollector.com/

edit: sorry if the text might seem odd with the pictures, but one site i wanted to use didnt redirect pictures the way i wanted them to. sorry for that, but I'm sure you can figure it out [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 07-18-2004, 05:58 AM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]

Ah, thanks Rikard. That's cleared up a lot of things [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

About the d100 - is it sometimes hard to tell which one is facing up? With so many sides, it would be almost a sphere and I was wondering if it is difficult to tell which specific side is facing upwards.

And... could you describe what happens with that strange d100 you posted there?

i dont own a d100 unfortunatly coz i cant find any, what i do know is that they are reasonably big (not huge) and they are appearently quite easily readable (says the producer so that statement is somewhat questionable [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

[ 07-18-2004, 06:03 AM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]

d4's hurt the most when you step on them.

A D3 could look like:

http://www.caerphillycastle.org/taco...3sideddice.gif

Rather than being angular, all of the sides/edges should be rounded so the die only rolls along the one axis.

Like my l337 MS Paint skillz?

[ 07-18-2004, 11:16 AM: Message edited by: Dace De'Briago ]

http://members.chello.nl/h.janssen63...n/image014.jpg less paintfull d4 [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Thats essentially what my D3 looks like, only witout the 4 ;)

Note the rounded corners that I mentioned :)

<<< Genuis


n.b. That was deliberate. Cheer up kids :D

Why not just use a cube with two of every number??? ???????? ??????????? ???????????????????????? ?????????? ???????????? ??????????

whats the fun in that ¬_¬

A d100 looks and rolls like a golf ball. I've heard of d30s being used. A d7 would be just a d8, roll again if an 8 comes up. A d5 is just d10/2, as a d3 is d6/2.

p.s. check out the graphic below my nick for how D&D dice look

[ 07-18-2004, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: DBear ]

I have had one of those d100s just for the heck of it (actually think it was a gift or something - the shop couldn't sell them and handed them out to people purchasing more than a certain amount). It's practically impossible to use. It has an internal load to stop it from rolling too much but it doesn't work that well. It just rolls forever. Reading it weren't that hard IIRC, but just use the 2xd10 instead. It's easier.
I have also had a d3. It was just a d6 with only 1's, 2's and 3's on it. Bah. Just roll d6 and halve.
Note that more dice with less sides is more realistic. E.g lets say we roll strength in two ways. One we roll d20 and ignore 1,2,19 and 20 and another we roll 3d6.
The latter is more realistic, because extremely high and extremely low values become rare. In a d20 world there are as many Schwarzeneggers as Joes and is not a good practise. 3d6 maps closely to the normal distribution, which defines most natural occurences.
Hence I always try to make weapons do 2d4 and 3d3+1 rather than single dice. Rarely the weapon will hit a soft spot and do more damage or scratch and do little, but it mostly delivers a consistent amount of damage.

In the game Ars Magica you only use d10, but in four different ways. Firstly you roll one dice and then a second and subtract the first from the last. If any of the dice rolls 0 the outcome is always 0, otherwise the result is the number from the subtraction. This is only used to roll attributes. You can also roll the dice "flat" called simple dice, where you simply use the face value and read 0 as 10. You can roll it as a stress die too, where 1 means you roll again (and again - there is no upper limit). In case you roll 0 you fail and roll to see if you "botch" and make a critical failure. This roll is used in situations where there are chances or extraordinary failure or success. Finally there is quality dice, which works as a combination. 0 is read as 10 and 1 is read as double. These are used in the rare occations where there is chance of extraordinary success without an equivalent chance of failure.
This is just to show that the concept of dice rolling isn't just a matter of choosing which polyhedron to roll.

Not quite, but I know what you mean ;)

1/2=1
3/4=2
5/6=3

though you can also roll as

1/6 =1
2/4 =2
3/5 =3

which some people think make's more sence because the sides are oppossed.


D4's are realy painfull to stand on.

Like caltrops :)

My characters ALWAYS used to carry a couple of those ready to make a quick escape.

Actually there is, I'll try and find "The Dice Man's" website, he's going for the Guinness record # of dice.

oops should have looked closer, the dice collecter from the previous page is the Dice Man.

[ 07-28-2004, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

Those are a pain in the butt to find.

I play 3rd ed. and d3s and d4s are mostly for spellcasters and small weapons like slings and such. You can substitute for the d3s.

Jaradu, about the d100s, see the dice on the first page? the percentile dice right next to the d10? Most people roll those two to get a number, using the percentile dice for tens and the d10 for ones.