The Power of the d12 (FNG - 6/25/10)

I think my group has a little bit of a fetish built up around the d12. The first game where we started to really use the d12 was in D&D 4th Edition. Our first game had me playing a warlock (striker) and my TheBro playing a dragonborn fighter (the tank) with some honking big two-handed axe. I was all excited because I had been playing World of Warcraft a lot at that point and my main character was a warlock. It was a perfect match, right?

Not really. I was all excited to be doing some super heavy damage with evil chaos bolts or something. The problem was, I was rolling d8's. Sure I got to roll multiple dice (my curse did an extra d6 I believe), but the dice were so modest. I found my character, on a really good day, only being able to muster about the same amount of damage as TheBro's average at-will attack. It was pathetic from my point of view. Sure my attacks did cool things like blind monsters or push them around, but the damage output is, for a striker, what what really matters. So what does this have to do with last Friday? Keep reading!

Fast forward to this past Friday nite gaming where we ran a couple of sample combat rounds with our Serenity characters. I went against my own type for this Serenity game and wanted to be a guy who really hurts people. Like his resume only has one skill listed under each of his jobs and that is "Worked diligently to make sure people wished they never met me." We're starting at the equivalent of paragon tier (experienced, but not crime lords or Big Damned Heroes). I was thrilled to be rolling d12's with my badass character. Each attack I was either stabbing, hacking, or shooting something with a d12 as part of my attack, and it was glorious.

We're also talking about starting up a Dark Sun 4th Edition game pretty soon since the book is coming out in the next couple of months. I've been busy using the character builder program trying to make a character for either the striker, defender/tank, or leader/healer role (since currently I'm a wizard controller and I want to try a different role) and I came across a Dwarven ranger who will be able to weild two axes that each deal d12 + whatever damage. When I build a character I usually want a good all-around character. I look at defenses, skills, usefulness out of combat, health, everything. Not this time, my little Dwarven berserker is the guy I keep coming back to as the character I feel most strongly about, and I don't know why.

I think I may be addicted to d12's. Oh God. Maybe it's the fact that it looks so much like a d20. I gurantee more people accidentally confuse a d12 with a d20 more than any other dice types. There's something very satisfying about the shape of the d12 with how it sits firmly without wobbling. d12's almost always show a proficiency that is super-human whether in an ability like Serenity or Savage Worlds or damage with D&D - it's a rare stat to hold. To get a d12 to roll in most games, you have to be very dedicated to the stat it's associated with. It show a deeper level and specialization for your character than any other die type. Really it's the biggest someone can choose to use before you get to ridiculous and use the d20. It's the largest die type within the "reasonable" range of dice.

All this being said, I'd like to see some d14s, 16s, and even 18s, just to see what they'd look like and if they'd obviously be superior to d12. Anyone else have a dice fetish like this, or am I just really, really crazy and need to get out of the house?