These aren’t the bottom of the barrel but they aren’t very far from bottom.
Name: Gemini Translucent Red-Violet/gold Polyhedral 7-Die set
Description: This is a set of 7 translucent dull-edge acrylic TTRPG dice made with violet and red mixed resin. These dice are available in approximately 11,000 other colors in this same dull-edge Chessex style. The font is very sterile with straight sides on the 6, 9, and 0, nice curves on the 2, 3, 5, an 8, My font-finder can’t find a good match for this font. It’s got elements of CG Gothic No. 1, as well as Impact though it’s neither wide nor bold. The d10s have softly edged waists. None of the dice have sharp edges or vertices. Underbars are used to indicate orientation of the 6 and 9 faces. The numbers are carved out of the faces and inked… beige? really?
Size:
d20: (Face->Face) 19.98mm (Point->Point) 23.25mm
Where did they come from: I’m not sure, but I’d guess Barnes & Noble
How much did they cost: Probably < $12
Material / color: Acrylic / Red/Violet material with beige numbers
Quality: fair
Readability: fair to good
Value: fair
Overall Rating: 5/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 46
One Hundred d20 rolls: 20, 9, 17, 10, 20, 16, 14, 13, 3, 19, 12, 18, 16, 20, 2, 9, 7, 15, 14, 5, 20, 18, 16, 6, 3, 8, 4, 3, 18, 10, 4, 1, 1, 14, 18, 13, 20, 20, 6, 14, 16, 12, 19, 2, 10, 9, 6, 2, 8, 8, 4, 18, 17, 15, 1, 4, 13, 3, 3, 10, 12, 17, 15, 7, 7, 18, 2, 17, 18, 4, 20, 15, 19, 3, 16, 16, 18, 11, 2, 2, 15, 16, 5, 12, 19, 20, 6, 9, 20, 1, 7, 6, 10, 7, 15, 12, 5, 7, 15, 9
Mean: 11.11
Median: 12
Mode: 20
Chi-square: 13.600 **
Result: Balanced
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 12, 15, 16, 17, 11, 18 (89 total!!) A Sassy Halfling Sorcerer from a small family bakery who seeks to end a family feud.
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Scenario: A 17th level Sorcerer / 3rd level Warlock with a 20 CHA (#looksmaxxing) and the Agonizing Blast invocation is quickening Eldridtch Blaeeeeest to fire 8 bolts per turn against that same Krakaren from two posts ago…
Round 1: 18, 24, 25, 21, 23, 16, 19, 24 (7 hits): 13, 10, 7, 6, 6, 7, 10, 13 = 72 damage
Round 2: 19, 29, 17, 24, 29, 20, 29, 30 (7 hits): 15, 9, 14, 14, 9, 15, 8, 13 = 97 damage
Round 3: 27, 18, 19, 13, 22, 13, 31, 28 (5 hits, 1 crit): 14, 10, 8, 11, 19, 14 = 76 damage
Round 4: 27, 17, 29, 13, 14, 17, 23, 16 (3 hits): 13, 14, 8 = 35 damage (Do better!)
Round 5: 22, 12, 25, 31, 14, 16, 30, 30 (4 hits, 1 crit): 13, 12, 13, 25, 13 = 76 damage
Round 6: 16, 26, 27, 18, 29, 20, 18, 26 (7 hits): 6, 11, 11, 15, 11, 15, 15, 7 = 91 damage
Round 7: 17, 27, 16, 19, 26, 29, 29, 12 (5 hits): 13, 13, 14, 8, 11 = 59 damage
That’s 506 damage, enough to kill the Neighborhood boss Krakaren. It’s okay, she filmed it and posted a meme about it in her right-wing facebook group. It took two rounds longer, and 14 Sorcerer points more than using Spirit Shroud with half the number of blaeeeeests per round. Sometimes the fun is in the journey.
Random Table Rolls:
Critical Fails for Spell Attacks: 78 – The caster forgets how to cast the spell
Cursed Magic Items: 19 – Ring of Disappearance – The ring disappears when equipped.
(I’m in-between random table generators at the moment so I’m scrounging for tables wherever I can, mostly in books)
Final Thoughts: I think I initially bought these dice for one of my kids who liked the color of them and just recently gave them back to me in favor of the other dice they owned. Wow. Thanks! At least it was only a waste of a little bit of money buying these dice that were initially requested because: “Ooh, cool color. I don’t want to leave the store without something in my hands…” Now that the novelty has long worn off, they’re just cheap Chessex dice that no one wants.
I don’t want to shit on Chessex. They are a step up from many entry-level dice out there. If I weren’t a Dice Goblin, I would just stock up on Chessex sets in many different colors and buy a new set or two every time I had a new character to play, or a different game system, or played on a different day of the week. Actually, that’s 100% goblin behavior… Sorry, I can’t help it.
So, what do I think of this specific set of dice?
– I don’t like the font color. I think they were going for a bronzy-gold shade but it doesn’t come off as metallic at all so it just looks like beige which is a terrible color for inking dice.
– I don’t like the inking job they did. It’s sloppy and there are some missed bits where it either wasn’t inked or the inked was worn off / scraped out.
– The colors that they used for the acrylic/resin material are near enough that they are hard to tell apart. When you look closely, the dice look like they have a tiny bit of red in one specific part of the die.
– These dice take longer to settle than maybe any other dice I’ve reviewed. They’re very wishy-washy when settling on a side. Maybe that’s a moment of excitement for people but it’s not at all for me. This is why I like sharp edge resin and sharp-edge metal dice. They settle and stop quickly.
– With the very-rounded edges, these dice are prone to cocked rolls sitting against the edge of my wooden dice tray. I’ve never had so many cocked rolls, even with the d20. I fear that I may have angered Ashley Johnson, the patron saint of cocked dice rolls and overall dice hijinks.
– The faces of these dice are just ever so slightly concave which is a big part of why I never buy Chessex or any acrylic dice. It looks like the material of the dice slightly contracts when it cools and the faces shrink in a bit. Again, another reason why good resin dice (and metal dice) are so, so much better
Is there anything I like about these dice? They look nice when you hold them up to the light. I like the violet color as the light reflects through the dice. I think that’s it. At least they weren’t expensive.
What to do with these? If they go into my dice box, they will never again come out unless someone wants a set of really low-quality dice or I need to do something with dice that might destroy them. Chessex knows their place in the world of dice… Just above the entrypoint. They don’t make anything expensive or high quality, but what they make is probably good enough for 90% of TTRPG players, while the small number of dice goblins just won’t touch them.
Dear reader: Do you want them?
** I’ve added a new value to the reviews called “Chi-square” which is a calculation of the difference between of the number of times each value was rolled in the d20 roll test compared to the number of times each value would be rolled in a perfectly equal roll test. (perfectly equal means every value comes up the same number of times, or [total number of rolls / number of sides on the die]) Chi-square gives a sense of how far away from the statistical average the results of the d20 roll test were. It’s not a perfect measure of a die’s balance and fairness but it’s a good step in that direction. More information about die fairness / balance roll testing can be found here: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/70802/how-can-i-test-whether-a-die-is-fair
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