Dice notation, explained.
What 2d6+3, 4d6dl1, 2d20kh1 and 3d6! mean, how likely each total is, and how to roll any of them in your browser with the odds drawn.
By Suraj Kumar5 min read
Tabletop games write dice in a short code: 2d6 means two six-sided dice. Once you can read it, you can roll any dice a game asks for, and see how likely each total really is.
NdS: how many dice, how many sides.
The number before d is how many dice, and the number after is how many sides: 3d6 is three six-sided dice added together, d20 is one twenty-sided die, and d% is a percentile die, 1 to 100. A number added on, as in 2d6+3, is added to the total.
Keep and drop.
4d6dl1 rolls four six-sided dice and drops the lowest, a common way to roll a character's scores: it averages about 12.24, against 10.5 for 3d6. 2d20kh1 keeps the higher of two d20s, which some games call advantage; 2d20kl1 keeps the lower. The dropped dice are shown faded.
Exploding and Fudge dice.
3d6! means a die showing its top face is rolled again and added, which can in theory go on for ever (the page stops at 100 extra rolls). 4dF rolls Fudge dice, each −1, 0 or +1.
The odds of every total.
Under every roll, the chance of each total is worked out exactly and drawn as bars, with your total marked and the chance of rolling it or higher. A 20 with advantage comes up 39 times in 400, almost twice as often as on one d20. There is no single standard for dice notation; the page reads the common forms and says in words what it understood.
Further reading
Topics: dice roller · dice notation · 4d6 drop lowest · d20 advantage · roll dice online · dnd dice roller
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