Easy Roller Dice and I have had a wonderful professional relationship since I’ve started this whole blog thing. I have to say, I am a little partial to their products – they tend to be simple and well executed, clean and crafted well, pragmatic.
Today, we take a look at their Legendary Metal D20s!
Cut/Size/Weight
Metal dice are… Something special, and Easy Roller have some of the best. The real selling point to their dice, as we’ve discussed many many times, is the wonderfully sharp precision corners, and I’m happy to see them return in three-out-of-four of these Legendary dice!
Most plastic dice end up almost completely round by the end of their polishing process due to tumble sanding and tumble polishing. The corners are worn down along with the other, lesser, imperfections – leaving a very smooth “small bump” instead of a proper edge.
Luckily, these dice are not only very hefty (weighing in at 29-31 grams!) they’re very well cut. Each face is very flat and balanced – keeping the dice from over-rolling.
The Dice
I have never lied – my favorite set of Easy Roller Dice are their Gunmetal and White – so let’s pit each of these legendary D20s against that one.
There are three important factors for the look and feel of these dice:
- Readability from playing distance
- Close-up appeal
- “In The Wild”
With that in mind, lets compare, contrast, and figure out if these guys are worth your time and money.
Legendary Copper
As with our previous Legendary Copper review, I love the luster of the copper and the warmth it gives.
Readability is just fine from a distance of 3 feet – the average I’d wager any but the tallest of tall people will be looking at these from – the luster contrasts well with the black semigloss numbering.
Close-up, these guys look pretty great! Not quite as sharp looking on the edges as the highly polished gunmetal, but damn fine!
Copper dice, when given free roam, gravitate toward areas of similar color. Sadly, they are often shy, and sometimes to not connect well with Fall Leaves. Bricks, however –
Oh… oh dear. Best not to pry on such private moments.
Legendary Silver
I absolutely love the cold, clean, and polished look of these dice. I want a full set of these dice – very very badly.
I gotta say, the silver actually makes the semigloss numbers pop like mad – they’re even easier to read and sharper than the Gunmetal and White – the white tends to bleed just a bit due to the glass-like polish of the dice. A matte finish here is the wise choice.
We see here a bit of a slip – the edges are just a bit more round than the gunmetal counterpart, but still very manageable. In darker light, as you can see, the numbers do get lost – but still… so gorgeous!
In the wilds, Legendary Silver dice like to perch high-up. Sometimes they will make small nests to collect odds and ends, many people –
It’s spotted us! RUN!
Gold? Bronze? Round? Sharp?
I won’t lie to you, dear reader – I have no clue which of these is supposed to be Bronze and which is Gold.
Copper and silver? Easy.
Bronze and Gold?
They’re both pretty… well, gold! One is rougher and more matte, the other is clearly polished far more than the other – leading to rounded points and weak edges… I’d hate to say that Gold means “round” in this legendary line-up. But If I had to guess, that’s what I’d put my money on.
Legendary Bronze
So if the rounded one is Gold, the sharp edged brutal looking die has to be the Bronze!
The luster leads to a good contrast with the black numbering – completely readable, it strikes a good figure.
Close-up, the matte finish helps cut away a ton of reflection leading to a more muted and smooth look. It’s got subtle grind marks due to the shorter polishing. I gotta say, I love this die. Possibly my favorite.
Battle hardened and brutal, these dice often destroy inferior objects when they wander the world. Here, I managed to photograph this little guy sleeping on a fresh kill: concrete. Due to his 8-side battle scar, I named him Jolly Grod Dropdie. I dared not wake him.
Legendary Gold
So we’re starting off on shaky ground – I’m already wary of the rounded edges and overly smooth look. So fingers crossed – let’s look closer.
Not quite as striking as the Legendary Bronze, but still good. It really blends in with the table a bit more despite being almost the exact same color as the Bronze die. I think the polish gives it a more smooth and low-contrast look on the table, making it blend in with its background more.
Yeah, I’m still not sold – I do enjoy the color. Far more of an actual gold than we’ve seen from other companies who tend to lean more mustard than rare metal. The lack of clean, defined edges – the note-quite-polished (mirrored like the Gunmetal) and not-quite-matte (like the rest) finish is just off a bit for me. I’d love to see this die look more like the Rose Gold dice we reviewed before!
Much like a house cat, the Legendary Gold die prefers to lounge about on high places. Low walls and tree branches are its favored terrain. Sometimes, it’ll even roll around to let you pet or scratch a number at random – but do not be fooled, it will rip apart your existence – or possibly just roll a far distance away.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I do like these dice! The weakest, by far, is the Gold die – but if the edges were sharp, even it would get my seal of approval. You can pick up these dice individually for about $10, but if you buy the set, you can snag them for about $7 each. They aren’t a horrifying investment – but possibly not for everyone.
In Dungeons and Dragons 5e, the mechanic “Advantage” comes up quite often. A player rolls two D20s and takes the higher number rolled. As such, the 4-pack (one of each) is the way to go, as it allows you to pair them together for such rolls, or add them to one of your many different metal sets, as I do.
I don’t always advocate rolling, but when I do… be sure you have to Drop the Die.
Review by JB Little, Follow me on twitter for more “useful” information.