A wonderful set of shiny, well balanced d6s from Honest Dice nee Flying Horseduck
Name: Honest Dice Rainbow D6 Collection
Description: This is a set of 7 transluscent sharp-edge resin TTRPG dice with holofoil inclusions from Honest dice (Formerly Flying Horseduck). The dice are all d6s. Each die is a different color of resin and they each have a bit of solid colored resin inside. Five of the seven dice have holofoil inclusions. The font is a modified custom font “based on the Futura typeface” according to the owner of Honest Dice. The high faces on each die have a carved hexagon with the 6 un-carved (negative space) inside. The set came in nice faux-leather box with a magnet lid and a stiff foam insert with cutouts for the dice to fit very, very snugly.
Size:
(Face->Face) 19.29 mm (vertex->vertex) 32.66 mm
Where did they come from: Honest Dice (via Kickstarter)
How much did they cost: $54
Material / color: Resin, rainbow of colors (color names are listed with the photos below)
Quality: Excellent
Readability: Excellent
Value: Good
Overall Rating: 10/10
Attempts needed to roll 18 on 3d6: 732
Attempts needed to roll 18 on 4d6 drop 1: 128
Attempts needed to roll 18 on 5d6 drop 2: 5
Attempts needed to roll 18 on 6d6 drop 3: 2
Attempts needed to roll 18 on 7d6 drop 4: 4
Two Hundred and Forty d6 rolls: 2, 1, 6, 6, 2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 2, 1, 5, 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, 6, 2, 4, 3, 3, 5, 5, 1, 2, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 3, 6, 5, 1, 2, 2, 5, 1, 3, 4, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6, 5, 2, 1, 4, 6, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 6, 5, 2, 1, 3, 5, 1, 6, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 6, 3, 1, 6, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 3, 6, 6, 6, 3, 3, 5, 3, 4, 3, 6, 5, 5, 1, 1, 2, 1, 4, 3, 2, 3, 6, 1, 6, 5, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 6, 2, 6, 6, 6, 4, 3, 6, 3, 5, 5, 6, 2, 2, 2, 1, 6, 5, 3, 5, 1, 2, 6, 4, 4, 3, 2, 6, 1, 3, 3, 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 6, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 6, 6, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 1, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 2, 4, 4, 1, 4, 2, 2, 4, 2, 5, 1, 1, 4, 3, 4, 1, 6, 3, 6, 3, 2, 2, 4, 2, 4, 6, 6, 4, 1, 5, 6, 4, 6, 6, 3, 1, 3, 3, 2, 4, 6, 2, 2, 4, 6, 2, 3, 2, 6, 2, 3, 5, 5, 3, 6, 6, 2, 5, 3, 4, 4, 3, 6, 6, 3, 3, 1, 5
Mean: 3.675
Median: 4
Mode: 6
Chi-square: 7.150 (For a d6, the 90% confidence value is 9.236)
Result: Balanced!
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 14, 9, 9, 13, 8, 12 (65 total) A Driven Half-Elf fighter from the Valley of the Giants who was petrified for over two hundred years
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Different methods of rolling up character stats:
3d6 (1st ed., for hardcore players only): 12, 11, 7, 8, 9, 9 (total: 56)
4d6 drop 1 (pretty standard): 8, 12, 15, 13, 17, 9 (total: 74)
5d6 drop 2 (generous): 11, 14, 13, 11, 9, 17 (total: 74)
6d6 drop 3 (Critical Role C4 method): 15, 15, 15, 16, 15, 14 (total: 90)
7d6 drop 4 (This is getting silly now): 13, 16, 12, 13, 15, 13 (total: 82)
7d6 drop 4 (rolling 1 die at a time): 17, 10, 17, 14, 14, 14 (total: 86)
I didn’t expect the 6d6 drop 3 to be the winner by that much.
I also didn’t expect that I wouldn’t roll any 18s even with 7d6.
Random Table Rolls (14d6):
Inn Encounters: 59 – The innkeeper puts a bottle of wine on the party’s table and says “This one’s on the house” and winks
Cursed Items: 70 – Ring of Attraction – Attracts Bees and Hornets
(I’m in-between random table generators at the moment so I’m scrounging for tables wherever I can, mostly in books)
Final Thoughts: These dice are from yet another Kickstarter campaign by Honest Dice (nee: Flying Horseduck). This Kickstarter was announced immediately after the previous Kickstarter (Aluminum & Titanium dice, see reviews: 108 “Fine Line” and 109 “Some Great Reward) ended. I took one look at these dice and pledged immediately. Given Honest Dice’s reputation and the very high quality of his previous Kickstarter dice campaigns, I was confident that they would 1) actually complete the campaign / reach their funding goal, 2) ship the dice on time, 3) Send monthly updates to keep backers informed, and 4) that the dice would be nice and well worth the price. They delivered on all four points.
If I had all the dice goblin monies in the world, I’d buy all of the dice that Honest Dice sells. Every type / shape / color / size that I could get my hands on. Thankfully I was able to buy this set of dice which I’d say are reasonably priced. There isn’t a lot to compare these against for sharp-edge d6 sets, especially in a slightly larger-than-standard size. The only company that I can think of that sells d6 sets that are similar quality is Everything Dice who sell sets of 6d6 lovely sharp-edge resin dice which are closer to “standard” size for $59 – $69.
They sell mostly matched sets (all 6 dice the same) and have one option for a random set of different d6s. They’re very nice dice but nice in a different way. I do really like Everything Dice’s sets, I’ve bought and reviewed a few sets from Everything Dice here, and I hope to review more of their sets in the future. I’d say this set in the review today is not as complicated / fancy as some of the sets from Everything Dice, but these are also larger and less expensive for 7d6 than Everything Dice charge for 6d6. Both companies make very, very good dice and could easily rate 10/10 on my dice rating scale.
What do I like about these dice?
– First, the size. I’m a taller than average person and have big hands. I also need to wear reading glasses so I like buying larger dice that feel better to hold and are easier to read.
– The clean font and sensible ink colors for the numbering. No gold or silver numbers, no Dwarven / Elven / Dragon themed fonts that are hard to read. They use a font that is similar to Futura and has either white or black ink for the numbers. The high face on all of these dice have a painted carved hexagon with the number unpainted in negative space. This makes the high rolls easier to spot and you still get the number on the high face. win-win.
– The simple yet flashy designs. Honest Dice go with fairly standard holofoil inclusions in most of their resin dice (which are always sharp-edged) and pick nice colors for their resin tints.
– The focus Honest Dice show on making the dice roll without bias. They put in a lot of work (detailed on their website) in to develop a different number layout for each of the different dice shapes that makes them roll with better mathematical randomness. If I were more of a tinkerer I’d work on building an automated dice tower that could roll dice and record the rolls, and update a website with the results, histograms and statistical analysis of the dataset. I’d love to see what the results of 10,000 rolls looked like for these dice from an automated (no human hands) system.
– The ability to buy rainbow sets where each die is a different color. I didn’t know that this was something that I would love so much in a set of dice. I bought a set of dice several years ago that have different color ink on each die (post 009: Color In Your Life) which gives a little bit of a tint effect to the resin. I realized that I really love things with a lot of vibrant colors in an organized pattern. I don’t like rainbow swirl colored things in general but something like a Rubik’s cube with each side being a different color is nice to look at. (I mention Rubik’s cubes as there are 4 of them sitting within arm’s reach as I write this). Back to the point I’m making… Since I first found rainbow colored sets for sale, I’ve now bought 8 sets of dice where each die is a different color. Nice dice make me happy and rainbow colored sets add just a little bit more on top of that. During June (Pride month) I brought only rainbow sets of dice to my in-person games to celebrate.
– Honest Dice sell their dice at a sizable discount during their Kickstarter campaigns. This is pretty smart of Honest Dice. It worked really well for me in the case of the Aluminum / Titanium sets where I REALLY wanted to buy those dice and knew that if I waited until after the Kickstarter campaign ended that the prices would go up about 20% – 40% and I’d never be able to stomach paying that much, even for such amazing dice. (I do have my limits)
What I don’t like about these dice:
1) The high face on the green d6 in my specific set has a some of pooled white/yellow ink right under the face (it probably settled there in the mold when they were cast). It makes the 6-face harder to read.
It’s a small complaint, and I’m having trouble finding anything bad to say about these dice so that’s it. I just got one die that wasn’t quite as fantastic as the other six. Overall I’m very happy with this set of dice. They’re sharp, shiny, large, clean, and reasonably priced. It’s a pentafecta! (a trifecta but 5 things instead of 3). Keep an eye out for Honest Dice’s next Kickstarter campaign, I know I’ll be watching for it.
** 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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