ChessexPound-O-Dice

I have lot o' dice now!I felt like treating myself so I ordered a set of these Wiz Dice along with a set of the Chessex Pound o' Dice. I'll leave a copy of this review in under the Wiz Dice as wellWiz Dice:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009R6J8RYI've bought the Pound o' Dice once a number of years ago and the contents have changed, perhaps for the better. One thing I liked about the old set was that it had some interesting dice in there. For example, it had a pair of larger casino style craps d6 dice and it had 1 d6 with poker faces. The current pound sticks to the standard dice and does a better job of balancing the numbers.So, what follows is a comparison of the sets.Chessex:- higher quality- greater weight- only 1 guaranteed set, very unlikely to see any more than that.- 105 dice ringing in at 1lb 3/8ozWizDice:- Lower quality, though not terrible- larger font (I like the Chessex font better but the WizDice are easy to read)- Lighter weight- Many, many full poly sets. 1 guaranteed specialty set comes in a small drawstring bag (about about 2 3/4” wide, 3 3/4” tall) with wizdice logo but my bag had an additional 14 full sets for a total of 15 sets. There were 6 dice which were not part of a set and those 6 dice were made up of two matching sets containing one each of a d4, d6, and d8.- 111 dice ringing in at 13 3/8ozDice count breakdowns:Chessex:- 11d4- 24d6 (15mm)- 3d6 (12mm)- 12d8- 10d10 (tens)- 22d10 (ones)- 13d20WizDice:- 17d4- 17d6 (16mm)- 17d8- 15d10 (tens)- 15d10 (ones)- 15d12- 15d20Generally speaking the dice are in good shape.Chessex:- 1d10 is unusable due to a chunk missing from one point- 1d10 has dimpled sides (minor)- 1d4 has minor edge chipping (minor)WizDice:- 1d8 has a warped point (moderate)- 1d6 has ink chipping (minor)- 1d6 has very minor bubbles (minor)All in all, I like the Chessex dice better because of weight, quality, style, and font. However, both packs have their uses. I like that the pound leans heavier on d6 and d10 (ones) as they'll find more use in my wargaming. the WizDice are perfect for RPGs and are not too shabby even though their style leans towards the plain.

I seem to be the one that loans out dice and supplies on a weekly basis, so having a decent collection is good. This is an excellent start for this. Starting an RPG with some friends that have never played before? There's plenty in here for that, and enough left over for the GM. This is less expensive than buying five matched sets, not counting the one it comes with (reserved for the GM, since they're the only ones guaranteed not to be seconds), and the players would get to pick out their own.My bag came with 96 dice total. 8 d4's (mostly translucent), 24 d6's (8 minis, 9 standard with pips and 7 standard with numbers), 9 d8's, 20 0-9 and 4 00-90 d10's, 9 d12's, and a whopping 22 d20's.A good bunch of dice were speckled in various colors. Not enough for matched sets, but a mix-and-match set would be nice enough, and leave me able to identify by color.Two of the 20-sided die were just a little oversized. One of those seems a little overly rounded--like it went through the polisher twice. It still appears perfectly serviceable. Aside from that one, not a single die seems to be a 'second' in any physical way.The 'seconds' come in the form of the speckled dice that appear to have been between runs. Most are perfect, pretty speckled dice, but the occasional one is one color on one half and another on the other, or collected the speckles toward one corner or face. I would actually love to have a set of matching half-and-half dice.Complaint one: I'm not overly enthused with the matched set that came with this. Perfectly made, like most Chessex products, but a milky semi-transparent white with sparse black specks seems anemic. Not up to my standards as a lover of beautiful dice with character. That said I obviously did not buy a bag of random dice for the looks. I get superstitious about my personal sets so don't lend my matched Blue Blood (gorgeous!) or black/gold ones to ANYBODY; this sickly-looking set will make good loaners without ruining my good sets' mojo, or lend a perfect ambiance to a GM running an undead-based setting.Of course, the matched sets vary. I'm just nitpicking.Complaint two: There's something magical about ducking into the local comic shop and digging through those fishbowls at the counter in the process of converting your pocket change into a handful of carefully-selected dice. You don't get that with this grab-bag, but it certainly gets points for the anticipation when you first open it up and dump it onto your table.