By Gideon Vance, longtime Dungeon Master and gemstone dice collector. Last reviewed July 2026.
The short answer: one standard seven-piece polyhedral set — d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, plus a percentile d10 — covers Pathfinder completely and Call of Cthulhu almost completely. Pathfinder is a d20-family game and asks for exactly the same dice as Dungeons & Dragons. Call of Cthulhu is a percentile game: two d10s do most of the work, and the one purchase worth making beyond a standard set is a third d10 so bonus and penalty dice never slow the table down. This guide defines the standard set, walks through what each system actually asks you to roll, and ends with a requirement table you can screenshot.
The standard seven-piece set, defined
Tabletop RPG dice are sold almost universally as a seven-piece polyhedral set: a four-sided d4, a six-sided d6, an eight-sided d8, a ten-sided d10 numbered 0 to 9, a twelve-sided d12, a twenty-sided d20, and a second ten-sided die marked in tens (00 to 90), usually written d% and called the percentile die. In standard dice notation, rolling the d10 and the d% together produces a number from 1 to 100 — the d100 roll that Call of Cthulhu is built on. The reason the seven-piece set became the industry default is exactly the situation this article covers: it is the intersection of what the major systems need. Buy one, and the question stops being "which dice" and becomes "how many of each," which is where the systems genuinely differ.
What Pathfinder actually asks you to roll
Pathfinder grew out of the same d20 rules family as D&D, and its dice requirements are identical: the full seven-piece set, with the d20 as the centerpiece. Every attack roll, saving throw, and skill check in Pathfinder Second Edition is a d20 rolled high against a difficulty class, sharpened by the system's signature degrees of success — beat the DC by ten and a success upgrades to a critical success; miss it by ten and a failure collapses into a critical failure. That one rule makes the d20 land even more often and more dramatically than it does in 5e, which is saying something given how thoroughly the d20 dominates a D&D session. The rest of the set handles damage and effects exactly as a 5e player would expect: weapon dice run from d4 daggers to d12 greataxes, and spell damage leans hard on fistfuls of d6 — a Pathfinder fireball is 6d6, the same dice pile as its 5e cousin. If you already play D&D, you can sit down at a Pathfinder table tonight with the set you own; our breakdown of how the dice math works in 5e transfers almost wholesale. The only Pathfinder-specific advice is quantity: because higher-level strikes and spells stack multiple damage dice, veteran players keep two or three extra d6s and d8s in the bag so big turns resolve in one throw instead of three.
What Call of Cthulhu actually asks you to roll
Call of Cthulhu works differently. It is a roll-under percentile system: your investigator has a skill rating from 1 to 100, you roll a d100 by reading two d10s together — the percentile die as the tens digit, the plain d10 as the units — and you succeed by rolling at or under the rating. Nearly everything in the game resolves this way: skill checks, characteristic checks, Luck rolls, Sanity rolls, even the improvement rolls that let skills grow between scenarios. The polyhedrals are not idle, though. Damage still uses the familiar spread — a d4 for small weapons, d6 and d8 for heavier hits, a d10 for handgun rounds — and Sanity loss is routinely written as dice, so a bad night can cost your investigator 1d8 Sanity. Character creation rolls characteristics with 3d6 or 2d6+6 before multiplying, so the d6 earns its keep before the first session even starts. What mostly stays in the bag are the d12 and the d20; Call of Cthulhu's core rules simply have little use for them. One reading convention is worth learning before your first session: a result of 00 on the tens die and 0 on the units die is read as 100, not zero, while 00 plus any other digit reads as that digit — 00 and 7 is a 7, often the best roll of the night in a roll-under game. The one mechanic that changes your shopping list is the bonus and penalty die: when circumstances help or hinder, you roll an extra tens die alongside the pair and keep the better or worse result. That means a smooth Call of Cthulhu table wants three d10s — two marked in tens, one in units — and players who bring a single seven-piece set end up re-rolling the same die and slowing the scene. A second cheap d10 is the entire upgrade cost of the game.
Building a kit that covers all three games
Put the two systems side by side and a simple buying logic falls out. One seven-piece set is the non-negotiable foundation — it is one hundred percent of Pathfinder's requirement and the core of Call of Cthulhu's. From there, add by system: a second d20 if your group plays games with advantage-style mechanics, extra d6s and d8s for Pathfinder damage stacking, and a third d10 for Call of Cthulhu's bonus and penalty dice. Players who run or referee games should scale up further; a Dungeon Master or Keeper rolls for every adversary in the scene, and our guide to dice for Dungeon Masters covers the multi-set logic. Casters have their own math — a 5e or Pathfinder spellcaster burns through d6s faster than anyone, as our wizard dice guide shows — and if you want to know how often each die actually lands in play, the dice probability cheat sheet puts numbers on it. The table below condenses the whole answer into one screenshot-friendly reference.
| System | Core roll | Dice the rules assume | Worth adding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dungeons & Dragons 5e | d20, roll high vs DC or AC | Full seven-piece set: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, percentile d10 | A second d20 for advantage; extra d6s for fireball-style spells and sneak attack |
| Pathfinder 2e | d20, roll high with degrees of success (beat DC by 10 = critical) | The same seven-piece set as D&D 5e | Extra d6s and d8s — higher-level strikes and spells stack multiple damage dice |
| Call of Cthulhu 7e | d100 roll-under (percentile d10 + units d10) | The d10 pair, plus d4, d6, d8, d10 for damage and Sanity; 3d6 / 2d6+6 at creation | A third d10 (second tens die) so bonus and penalty dice roll in one throw |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do Pathfinder and D&D use the same dice?
Yes. Pathfinder Second Edition uses exactly the same standard seven-piece polyhedral set as D&D 5e: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, plus a percentile d10. A set bought for one game covers the other with nothing left over.
What dice does Call of Cthulhu use the most?
The d10s. Call of Cthulhu resolves almost everything with a d100 roll read from two ten-sided dice — a tens-marked percentile die and a units d10 — rolled at or under your skill rating. Damage and Sanity loss use d4, d6, d8, and d10.
What are bonus and penalty dice in Call of Cthulhu?
An extra tens die rolled alongside the normal percentile pair. With a bonus die you keep the better tens result; with a penalty die you keep the worse one. Because it is an additional tens d10, a smooth table wants three d10s in total.
Do I need a d12 or a d20 for Call of Cthulhu?
Rarely. The core rules of Call of Cthulhu resolve on percentile dice, and damage runs on d4 through d10, so the d12 and d20 mostly stay in the bag. Keep them anyway — they come standard in every seven-piece set and cover you for other games.
How many dice should a new Pathfinder player buy?
One standard seven-piece set is fully sufficient to play. Because Pathfinder stacks multiple damage dice on higher-level strikes and spells, two or three extra d6s and d8s are a cheap upgrade that lets big turns resolve in a single throw.
Can one dice set cover D&D, Pathfinder, and Call of Cthulhu?
Yes. A standard seven-piece polyhedral set covers all three systems. The only addition worth making is a second tens-marked d10 for Call of Cthulhu's bonus and penalty dice — after that, the same set runs every game listed here.