Let’s all raise a glass to buying and reviewing more chonk glass d20 dice.
Name: Red and Blue Glass Chonk D20
Description: These are two chonk glass d20 dice. One is a deep red and the other is a dark indigo blue. They are made of plain old glass. They have slightly dulled edges and shallow carved numbers in a TNR-adjacent serifed font with some odd little tweaks. The 4 doesn’t quite connect at the top junction. the 2 has a shaved knee, the 9 has a flat forehead and the 6 has a corresponding flat belly. At a quick glance you probably wouldn’t notice these but looking deeper, they stand out a little bit. The numbers are painted gold which works well enough with both the dark blue and the red glass. The 6 and 9 faces use dots to indicate their orientation. . I think they’re just some kind of standard tempered glass but I’ll never know for sure. They might be available in other colors but I didn’t see any others available when I bought them. I got them a few years ago and I don’t see them in the listings of the Etsy seller who I bought them from now.
Size:
Red d20: (Face->Face) 27.8 mm (Point->Point) 34.2 mm
Dark Blue d20: (Face->Face) 27.9 mm (Point->Point) 34.2 mm
Where did they come from: Etsy (Seller: Crystal Maggie)
How much did they cost: $28 (red) and $34.38 (dark blue)
Material / color: Glass, red and dark blue
Quality: Very good. Nicely polished, good clarity.
Readability: Very easy. No problem reading them from 8′ away on the rug.
Value: decent to good. The prices are borderline spendy for single chonk d20s that are glass with no special designs/inclusions/shaping.
Overall Rating: 8/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20:
Red: 2 rolls
Dark Blue: 28 rolls
Fifty d20 rolls (Red): 8, 11, 8, 3, 10, 11, 6, 15, 10, 5, 10, 8, 16, 4, 3, 15, 7, 3, 3, 4, 14, 10, 11, 14, 19, 4, 1, 15, 15, 10, 12, 11, 11, 14, 17, 7, 3, 18, 7, 18, 7, 4, 2, 7, 13, 5, 4. 8, 12, 17
Mean: 9.4
Median: 10
Mode: 3, 7, 10, 11
Fifty d20 rolls (Dark Blue): 13, 19, 11, 8, 8, 3, 14, 4, 5, 12, 6, 11, 15, 17, 12, 18, 7, 18, 12, 4, 11, 13, 5, 16, 2, 7, 3, 6, 5, 8, 13, 15, 11, 2, 19, 19, 14, 10, 4, 19, 19, 16, 17, 5, 9, 8, 15, 1, 17, 18
Mean: 10.88
Median: 11
Mode: 19
No 20s rolled in either set of 50 rolls…
1d20 re-roll < 3 stat block:
Red: 8, 16, 10, 7, 10, 5 (56 total) An unpredictable Tiefling Rogue from a cliff-side village who is tracking down the treasure their father died trying to find.
Blue: 13, 8, 11, 4, 6, 9 (51 total) A Charming Gnome Fighter from the vast wastes who wears a mysterious necklace that constantly brings them out in a rash.
Wow those are both terrible stat blocks. A fighter with a -1 to CON and -2 to INT!
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Picking locks as a 20th level rogue (red d20):
(assuming that they used 2 of the 6!! ASIs to bring the DEX to 20, and has expertise with their thieves tools)
DC 10: 7 + 17 = 24 SUCCESS!
DC 15: 14 + 17 = 31 SUCCESS!
DC 20: 8 + 17 = 25 SUCCESS!
DC 25: 19 + 17 = 36 SUCCESS!
DC 30: 14 + 17 = 31 SUCCESS!
DC 35: 9 + 17 = 26 FAILS… but they use Stroke of Luck: 20 + 17 = 37: SUCCESS!
DC 40: 1 + 17 = 18 CRITICAL FAILURE, Thieves tools are destroyed.
20th Level fighter (Arcane Archer) attacking a Storm Giant:
(Dexterity raised to 20 with ASI and feats. Took the Archery fighting style and both the Sharpshooter and Piercer feats. Fights with a +1 heavy crossbow)
1st Attack: 6 + 2 + 1 + 11 -5 = 15 MISS!
2nd Attack: 1 + 2 + 1 + 11 -5 = 10 CRITICAL MISS!
3rd Attack: 15 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 24 HIT! Shadow Arrow 9 + 1 + 10 + 20 = 40 Damage
4th Attack: 18 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 27 HIT! 10 + 1 + 10 = 21 Damage
Action Surge!
5th Attack: 11 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 20 HIT! 10 + 1 + 10 = 21 Damage
6th Attack: 17 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 26 HIT! 7 + 1 + 10 = 18 Damage
7th Attack: 15 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 24 HIT! 6 + 1 + 10 = 17 Damage
8th Attack: 10 + 2 + 1 + 11 – 5 = 19 HIT! 8 + 1 + 10 = 19 Damage
The Storm Giant takes 116 piercing and 20 psychic damage and still has just under half her HP remaining. Let’s hope we’re 100+ feet away from her with our long range weapon.
(This is another excuse for rolling dice)
Random Tables rolls: (6 x d20)
Rare Eberron Gods: (Red d20): 72 – The Lost One – The Lost One is an ancient god of the dead, forgotten by time and history. It is said that those who seek its favor can gain knowledge of the past and future, but only at a great cost. Its domain is death and necromancy, and it has no known relationships with other gods in the pantheon.
Masks: (Dark Blue d20): 61 – You were resurrected, but it was a painful experience and the torment you wish you hadn’t been brought back. You wouldn’t wish upon your greatest enemy let alone your best friend. If you are aware of someone being resurrected, you will you do every in your power to stop it, so they don’t go through the pain you did.
(I’m getting these random tables at: https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts: These were the first glass dice that I bought. I got them a few years ago when I was still enamored with metal dice and looking for other materials that dice can be made of. Wood, bone, clay… These dice met several important criteria in my goblin brain:
– Made of glass, in the same ballpark as rubies and saphires
– Chonk sized. These two things had me 95% of the way to clicking “buy now”
– Reasonable font. A dwarven font could have steered me clear of these
– Gold numbers didn’t look terrible on these like they do on most sets
– No dumb logo on the 20 face. Another thing that would have deterred me
– The price wasn’t great but wasn’t silly expensive
I bought the red one first and liked it enough that I bought the blue one soon afterward. I don’t remember if they were available in more colors, but I would have liked to buy a whole ROYGBIV set of them if I could have. Now that I’ve had them for a while and I don’t use them that often, I wouldn’t put them on my white whale list of dice that I’m looking for but if I ran into more chonk glass d20s in a game store, I’d buy a few.
The dice are about as sharp edged as you’d want a glass die to be without it cutting your hand every time you handle it. The weight for these is a nice midpoint between resin and metal chonk d20s. These two d20s don’t roll so well (notice that both of the 50 roll sets did not have any natural 20 rolls?). These dice sort of skid to a stop for about 2-3 widths of the die at the end of a roll instead of just flopping over side-to-side at the end of a roll like a lighter die would. Not a bad thing but less interesting or exciting than a floppier die.
I’m surprised that the gold numbering works so well for both of these dice. Some of it is the size of the die not making the numbers squished smaller. Some of it is just that the solid color of the glass makes for a steady surface / clean look where a die with inclusions wouldn’t do so well.
These dice have been very durable so far. No chipping or scratching from using them. I keep them each in their own little pen in one of my dice tubs so they don’t touch other dice when they’re in storage. I have enough dice bags / boxes to protect them when / if I take them to a game. (which I will next time I play).
I think I’ll look to buy more of these d20s. They’re not perfect but they’re pretty good and I don’t have *THAT* many glass dice.. only a few d20s and maybe 3-4 full sets. I have plenty of room in my dice bins for more of these.
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