Mighty Nein dice from Critical Role have been steadily improving in quality and design
Name: Critical Role Champion Dice Set: Yasha Nydoorin
Description: This is a set of standard-ish size sharp edge resin dice. They are made of clear and whiteish cloudy resin with flecks of black… something suspended inside. The dice are commissioned by / sold by Critical Role to coincide with the release of the Mighty Nein animated series on Amazon. The font is similar to Goudy Old Style but more smooth/formal with no curve in the stem of the 7 and thicker sides in almost all of the numbers. The 20 face has a harp on it instead of the number ’20’. The 6 and 9 faces use underbars to indicate their orientation. The dice came in a cardboard box with Critical Role designs on it and came with a light gray / whiteish drawstring cloth bag that has the Critical Role d20 logo on it. This set is one of 3 newly released sets of Mighty Nein dice from Critical Role.
Size:
d20: (Face->Face) 21.72 mm (Point->Point) 26.56 mm
Where did they come from: The Critical Role online shop
How much did they cost: $25!
Material / color: Clear and cloudy white resin with black flecks inside and a black inked font.
Quality: Excellent
Readability: Not great
Value: Very Good
Overall Rating: 9/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 7 rollsFifty One Hundred d20 rolls: 12, 20, 11, 3, 11, 9, 6, 12, 2, 8, 17, 4, 6, 9, 17, 7, 18, 5, 17, 5, 19, 6, 20, 1, 20, 5, 3, 5, 1, 7, 9, 16, 5, 8, 5, 13, 20, 19, 1, 13, 13, 10, 14, 6, 15, 1, 15, 15, 12, 12, 2, 5, 18, 19, 4, 6, 9, 12, 15, 3, 14, 15, 17, 7, 4, 6, 8, 12, 4, 12, 5, 15, 2, 3, 18, 8, 11, 4, 12, 16, 17, 17, 2, 18, 5, 12, 6, 5, 6, 8, 20, 7, 9, 10, 4, 13, 3, 2, 15, 8
Mean: 9.81
Median: 9
Mode: 5
Chi-square: 19.20 **
Result: Balanced
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 14, 9, 12, 13, 13, 15 (76 total) A Depressed Half-Elf Paladin from a notorious dungeon who names every piece of their gear.
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
A 20th level Half-Elf Vengeance Paladin with max DEX/CHA, the Elven Accuracy and sharpshooter feats hiding behind the rocky landscape on a cliff 150′ up above the sea shooting arrows from a +1 longbow at a CR23 Kraken in the water. The Paladin is just out of range of the Kraken’s Lightning Storm attacks. How many Arrows will it take. The Paladin uses sharpshooter and divine smite every chance she can. To make this end sooner, we will very generously give the Paladin advantage on all shots.
(The spell slot used for divine smite at the end of each line)
Arrow #1: 15 + 11 + 1 -5 = 22 HIT! 1d8 + 5d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =49 damage lvl 3
Arrow #2: 14 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 21 HIT! 1d8 + 5d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =41 damage lvl 3
Arrow #3: 12 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 19 HIT! 1d8 + 5d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =47 damage lvl 3
Arrow #4: 18 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 25 HIT! 1d8 + 6d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =55 damage lvl 4
Arrow #5: 14 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 21 HIT! 1d8 + 6d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =51 damage lvl 4
The Kraken has taken 243 damage so far
Arrow #6: 18 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 25 HIT! 1d8 + 6d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =50 damage lvl 4
Arrow #7: 17 + 11 + 1 -5 = 24 HIT! 1d8 + 4d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =38 damage lvl 2
Arrow #8: 18 + 11 + 1 – 5= 19 HIT! 1d8 + 4d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =35 damage lvl 2
Arrow #9: 17 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 25 HIT! 1d8 + 4d8 + 5 + 1 + 10 =38 damage lvl 2
Arrow #10: 20 + 11 + 1 – 5 = 27 CRIT! (1d8 + 6d8) * 2 + 5 + 1 + 10=106 damage lvl 5
The Kraken has taken 510 damage which is more than enough to end it.
I’m reaching quite a bit with the wacky scenarios now trying to come up with something new. This is completely unrealistic that a paladin could just sit on a cliff untouchable and fire away at a big Kraken in the sea down below with advantage (rolling 3d20 advantage with Elven Accuracy) over and over again until the Kraken is defeated.
Also, I’m surprised that it took nearly 30 rolls before I had a Natural 20.
Random Tables rolls:
Somatic Spell Components: – 15 The caster raises both fists directly up, and slowly lowers them to their sides while splaying and wiggling their fingers.
Interesting Forest Locations: – 30 The slimy tracks of a giant snail. If followed, the creature is encountered trying to devour a humongous mushroom. Who knows what kind of treasure it might have accidentally swallowed.
(I’m getting these random tables at:https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts: I’ll get this out of the way… I’ve been a fan of Critical Role since I first came across their content during the pandemic near the end of their 2nd Campaign (The Mighty Nein). I watched every episode of campaign 3 and so far Campaign 4. I like their content and they seem like very nice people. (Please don’t get yourselves cancelled CR)
The dice that Critical Role have sold in the past have been crappy plastic rounded junk. Somewhere in the middle of Campaign 3 they upped their game and started selling sharp edge resin dice with simple inclusions themed for the characters in the campaigns and also partnering with Everything Dice to sell some very fancy (but overpriced) sharp edge resin dice. I’ve bought 3 previous sets of CR dice from campaign 3 (Ashton, Orym, and Fearne). This set is a new one that they’ve released themed after a campaign 2 character: Fallen Protector Aasimar Barbarian Yasha Nydoorin (Played by Ashley Johnson). This and a few other C2 themed sets of dice were released to coincide with the new Critical Role Mighty Nein animated series.
I’ve watched the animated series and I just love the way that they’re portraying Yasha as a complete beast in combat who can just destroying everything and everyone in her path, earning her tribal name: “Orphan maker”. I wish she featured more prominently in the first season.
I like the 3 previous sets of dice I’ve bought from Critical Role. See review #008: “Highway to (Bells) Hell(s)” for those dice. This set of Yasha dice are very similar to those other 3 sets that I bought. They’re well made resin dice with different color resins, some black inclusions and numbers in a font that’d be pretty readable if it were in a different color. The deep Indigo color for the numbers looks really good on the cloudy gray background but on some of the faces where there are more black inclusions underneath the face, the numbers are nearly impossible to read from more than a few inches away. The only thing I dislike about this set of dice (and I knew that this is how they design their character-themed dice) is the harp design on the 20 face. I’ve railed against logos on the 20 face before so I won’t go into that again. This one has a harp on the 20 face to symbolize the harp made from a Humanoid spine constructed by Keona the Keen for Yasha in the campaign. It seems like such a tiny thing to use for the logo on the 20 face but I guess it makes for a good logo or something.
The dice are very nice overall and except for being hard to read, they feel nice, they roll nice, they’re a good standard size, and they look good with the colors that were used for the resin, inclusions, and ink for the numbers. If you’re a fan of any of these things:Critical Role
Critical Role Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein
Yasha Nydoorin
Ashley Johnson
Strong female characters
Well made sharp-edge resin dice
Harps made from humanoid spines
Rainbow Lorikeet birds
The number 51
Mechanical Pencils
The Gender Spectrum
Gerunds
Occam's Razor
Multifactoral Causation
Planck's Constant
Then I think you would do well to buy a set of these dice. At $25, they’re a very good deal.
** 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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