I’ll buy these dice in just about any color combination that I can find
Name: Deco Red/White Metal Dice Set
Description: This is a set of seven sharp-edged metal dice that are painted white with red faces designed around the raised numbers (which are painted white). Each face has lines from one vertex spreading out toward the other edges of the face. Sort of like drawn sun rays. The font is in the Times New Roman ballpark with serifs on the 1, 2, and 4 and little balls at the terminals of the 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9. The 6 and 9 faces use a tiny dot underneath (yes, underneath) the digit to indicate orientation.
Size: (Face->Face) 23.12 mm (Point->Point) 28.74 mm
Where did they come from: Forged Gaming
How much did it cost: $48
Material / colors: Metal, white/red enamel paint
Quality: Very Good
Readability: Good to Very Good
Value: Moderate
Overall Rating: 9/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 14
One Hundred d20 rolls: 14, 8, 15, 13, 8, 16, 19, 19, 19, 13, 17, 6, 8, 15, 2, 2, 15, 7, 2, 7, 6, 20, 8, 9, 20, 14, 4, 18, 11, 10, 1, 5, 2, 2, 4, 15, 16, 10, 6, 6, 20, 15, 14, 5, 17, 14, 14, 20, 19, 13, 6, 8, 9, 11, 6, 10, 6, 9, 2, 19, 5, 7, 9, 20, 2, 14, 5, 10, 20, 7, 15, 5, 13, 15, 10, 1, 4, 14, 13, 20, 6, 10, 15, 12, 13, 6, 12, 20, 4, 8, 12, 18, 3, 20, 5, 19, 1, 20, 20, 1
Mean: 10.83
Median: 10
Mode: 20
Chi-square: 26.800 **
Result: Balanced (but barely)
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 9, 11, 7, 13, 12, 13 (65 total) A Mean Aasimar Bard from a foggy peninsula who always takes first watch.
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
A bard makes a performance check at every odd-numbered level with their stats increasing normally with ASIs:
PB: Proficiency Bonus, CHA: Charisma modifier
Level 1: 2 + 3 = 5 PB: 2, CHA + 1
Level 3: 18 + 5 = 23 PB: 2, CHA + 1, Expertise
Level 5: 12 + 8 = 20 PB: 3, CHA + 2, Expertise
Level 7: 10 + 8 = 18 PB: 3, CHA + 2, Expertise
Level 9: 17 + 11 = 28 PB: 4, CHA + 3, Expertise
Level 11: 5 + 11 = 16 PB: 4, CHA + 3, Expertise
Level 13: 6 + 13 = 19 PB: 5, CHA + 4, Expertise
Level 15: 7 + 13 = 20 PB: 5, CHA + 4, Expertise
Level 17: 10 + 17 = 27 PB: 6, CHA + 5, Expertise
Level 19: 14 + 17 = 31 PB: 6, CHA + 5, Expertise
Random Table Rolls (d100):
Tavern Regular 63 – Col. Westin Majors, who claims to be a demon hunter from another age, and his dog, Otto, who loves to fetch.
(The book where I found this table: “The Game Master’s Book of Astonishing Random Tables” predates the K-Pop Demon Hunters movie by 2 years and is endorsed by both Ginny Di and Robbie Daymond)
6th Level Spell Scrolls: 49 Planar Ally
(I’m in-between random table generators at the moment so I’m scrounging for tables wherever I can, mostly in books)
Final Thoughts: This is a set of dice that I’ve had for a while. I Originally bought a different set of these which I reviewed in post 020 “Blue Monday”. These are pretty much the same as that other set of dice but these are red/white instead of blue/blue. They’re heavy and they roll a little bit clunky. They’re larger than standard dice, especially the d20. They’re sharp enough to cut your foot if you stepped on the d4 but the thick enamel paint job dulls them a tiny bit. They’re great dice, I love the “Deco” design that I presume is inspired from Deco architecture with it’s bold zigzags, chevrons, step-backs, and sunburst motifs.
The only negative things I can really say about these dice is
1) They’re a little bit more expensive than you’d think they’d be, As always, I’m happy to pay for things that I like from stores that aren’t run by evil billionaires. $48 is probably a fair market price for these even though I’m sure they’re churned out by the dumpster-full every day somewhere in China.
2) The enamel is prone to chipping off after time and the white numbers start to get marked with red from the dice sitting together in in one of my dice boxes. The d20 doesn’t roll very well and I suspect that these dice are not well balanced, which is what the Chi-square calculation tells me. They sure look pretty doing it though.
Bottom line: They’re gorgeous and you should absolutely buy some of these. Forged Gaming has them in 14 different colorways but only two of them are enamel coated. These are some serious metal dice that are fun to look at and satisfying to roll.
** 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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