Those Colored German Dice

[Lemmeron]

I will have to update my main project page again as the hero cards were posted ages ago and the host site has watermarked everything..

But essentially characters have a total of body + mind = 12 points not 10 like the original.

Barbarian attacks 4/6 and defends 1/6 with a black die
Elf attacks 2/6 and defends 4/6 with a green die
Dwarf attacks 3/6 and defends 2/6 with a white die
Wizard attacks 2/6 with a green die and defends 1/6 with a black until obtaining mage gear and then it changes to purple attack and defend character die.

Equipment then adds set dice onto this starting die such that in most cases a barbarian will always have a slight attack advantage when equipped with the same weapon as the other characters. An elf will have a slight defense advantage and a slight hit penatly compared to a dwarf and barbarian etc etc

[cynthialee]

I have used them in numerous situations at the game table.

I allow the Heroes to roll the Black Dice to Attack, but they must roll them to defend
Once the Barbarian is a Champion he may always roll the Black Dice to attack and may roll the regular dice to defend

The Purple Dice are for powerful magic weapons and the yellow dice I use for powerful monsters. There is one less face with a Skull, but one is a double skull and there is 2 faces with Black Shields and one is a double.

The Orange Dice I use for occasional Champion Greenskins sure you sacrifice a face with skulls, but the faces you do have are doubles.

I do not have any of the other colors as I haven't seen much use for them. I have thought that maybe the Green Dice would be good for someone declaring a defensive posture, so long as they have to attack with them also.

[arntisdale]

Just a thought on the colored dice:
Since these are in pretty much all cases that I've read, been intended for some specific use, Attack, Hero Defense, Monster Defense being the main ....
Why not re-design some sets directly for their intentions? Some sets with only skulls/white shields for heroes, blanks if not all sides need to be filled in. The black shield does nothing for heroes, right?
Other side of that would be sets with skulls/black shields for monsters, because once again, white shields do nothing for monsters.
I've been playing with this idea in my head, and it could certainly open up more variability for dice that are designed purposefully for attack/defense progression for both monsters and heroes.
As it is, the current ones are cool, but it doesn't matter if a hero rolls blue or black die for defense, a blue or white die for attack, the odds are identical. And if one is never going to be used for hero defense in the first place, what's the point of having a white shield on it?
Looking at the monster possibilities, if they defend with a green black purple or white die, the odds are identical. It looks like the only die that were meant to progress monster defense over the original whites are the blue and orange sets. So once again, what's the point of having black shields on the green black and purples?
Seriously folks, I'm not trying to rip on a system that's been at the Inn longer than I have. But it does look to me like there's serious room for variability improvement.

Thoughts?

[Kurgan]

You could. Of course there are other uses for these dice besides that. You could have a weapon that uses a different color dice to reflect it being weaker or stronger, a spell effect that changes the color of your dice temporarily, etc.

Yes, you could have very specific dice with blanks, but who wants to look at blanks? The dice have multiple purposes. All of the odds on the Blue, Black and Green dice can be applied to White dice as well, it's just a visually cooler way to do it. You can also calculate the odds of HQ dice on standard 6 sided dice as well, but, again, not as visually fun (and slightly easier to distinguish).

I'm not saying it can't be improved, but the dice don't come with instructions, you can use them however you like. The same guy offers dice that lack shields at all, or lack skulls at all. I don't need them but somebody might find a use. Not everyone wants to buy 100s of dice, of course.

[arntisdale]

Here's what I have so far. Been fiddling around with it a little bit this afternoon.
Still six different color sets. Every combination of the individual icons in the original set is present. No blanks. No repeats.

[arntisdale]

Been playin' with some of the art that could go with this. Limited to 5 files per post, so this post is for the White Shields.
Which of the triple shield designs do you guys like the most?

[arntisdale]

Here's the Black Shield art. Would also like to know what you guys think about the triple shield options for this one too. Which one looks better?

[QorDaq]

@Arntisdale

For Hero shields I prefer the third shield at the top, while for the Monster shields, I think I prefer the third shield at the bottom. For me I think it's a matter of the shapes involved.

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In other news;

I just went and gandered at the Toy Saloon website for the first time in a while. I noticed two die types I hadn't seen before; a Key die and a Poison die. Each in three colors as follows:

Key Dice

Black - 3 Skulls and 3 Keys
Blue - 3 Skulls, 2 Keys and 1 Blank
Green - 3 Skulls, 1 Key and 2 Blanks

The Poison/Potion dice are the same colors and distributions, just with Potion icons instead of Keys.

These open up some interesting possibilities I think, in terms of custom lock, trap, and potion rules of multiple types. These could be random difficulties for picking, disarming, or identifying for example. Or random effects or success results. And with three different distributions, there's room for mixing and matching to create even more variable outcomes.

Anyway, the point of bringing up these new (to me) die types was to ask; has anyone seen these dice yet? Used them? Are these old news and I just never saw the discussion?

[Kurgan]

They are fairly new (the key or bottle dice) in terms of the last year or so, but I haven't seen a discussion. When I saw them I didn't think I'd have a use for them, much like the gray, olive, etc. dice, and I haven't seen a discussion here on them. Though the latter colors some people have incorporated into their Equipment card systems.

When disarming a trap with a tool kit the 50% thing doesn't seem to need a new die, it's just a formality. For the others I guess you could use them, or for mystery potions or for something else entirely. You could use it for pretty much anything you wanted, and perhaps instead of a card too in some cases. If someone has a good use for them, I'd love to hear it.

[j_dean80]

So I ordered the blue potion dice for the Alchemist. Lets see how long it takes to get them this time. Last time I ordered dice I waited 3 months with no communication.