Is there a such thing as too many dice?

Instead on relying on Polyhedral dice as an option, do custom colored dice.

The idea being that each color has a format:

White = 1,1,1,2,2,3
...
Red = 2,2,4,4,6,6
...
Black = 4,4,4,5,5,6

This is just an example to illustrate what I mean. You can UP the type of die individually as a player gains more experience.

Cheers!

So with the game I'm developing, I too had many dice, to the point where players were going with 10 dice at a time.

This was a bad play. Too many to calculate, to many to fit in hands, and even getting this to a smaller amount was still a bit awkward.

If you haven't played Formula D, I'd suggest looking at their dice. They have your polyhedral idea and mixes it with the above suggestion. For instance, their D4 has results of 1,1,2,2, their D6 is 2,3,3,4,4,4, and it goes up from there. You could attempt something like this as it would provide you with one die to roll, an obvious sequence of power level by how many sides are present, and gives it a unique twist to your style of game.

If the main problem with lots of dice is adding them up, you might choose to deal with Best Roll rather than Total Roll. No maths, and having more dice still makes you stronger.

Or a hybrid for a wider range of outcomes: Pick out the top 2 rolls and total them.

On BGG there are debates over buckets of Dice systems verse other systems etc. For all the griping about math in games get into a dice debate on BGG and out comes heavy probability theory mathematics. I started playing games that used percentile die mostly. I thought it easy to conceptualize your chances of success when expressed in a percentage. I always liked them from design as ti gave the most options for outcomes and modifiers. Other complain it has a flat distribution.

These days it seems many people prefer custom dice as talked of above.

There is definitely a type of gamer who enjoys the Bucket o’ Dice style of play, but it’s probably not wise to limit yourself to that corner of the market.

I like the idea of custom dice in a progression, and you can also have a progression of symbols on those dice. For example three different symbols that indicate a hit (fist, hammer, sword), and under some conditions only some of those count (a defensive power might nullify fist hits, being on higher ground makes swords count double, etc.). A high-power die’s side could easily have two or even three symbols on it.

Working out the probabilities can get tedious, but it allows for many many different mechanics on at most a handful of dice.

d6s arent the only dice. instead of 2 d6s try a d12. actually that wont give you the same results, the d12 has a flatter distribution, but you could level up from a d6 to d10 and gain 4 extra points/options etc. try anydice.com for dice analysis.

In MK the 1st Player for that round rolls 4d6s: 3 white and 1 black. The Black die is the "Arcane" die and is the first operand in the equation (ex: "3 ...", where "..." is +3, -1, /3, x2, etc.)

But the three (3) White dice, you get to choose HOW you want to allocate them across three "resources": Power, Skill and Magic.

Usually you want the HIGHEST die to be your Power, since most Melee Attacks rely on Power to attack or retaliate against your opponent. But sometimes, you'll want MORE "Magic" to use Spells or Advanced Tactics that require more Magic...

The point I wanted to make with all of this is that FOUR (4) dice is ENOUGH! More dice would just be ridiculous and I explored a bunch of possibilities like multipliers (Each Power = 4x, Skill = 3x, Magic = 2x) but it became unruly.

My suggestion is to use four (4) to five (5) dice at max.

Note: One of the MOST popular dice game (Yahtzee) uses FIVE (5) dice. And it's purely a "dice game". What this means is that probably using 5d6s in a game is probably a peak or maximum.

Also if you picture how many dice your hand can hold and shake... Five (5) MAYBE six (6) would be maximum ... I don't like games where you need to divide the dice into piles and roll each pile separately.

Smaller versions of other dice don't really work. They don't roll that well, despite their "rounder" form. It's due to friction with the surface. I think, that spiky dice do better. Since their connection time with the surface is less. Also, smaller dice are harder to read. Especially when there are bigger numbers in play.

I Always loved 12 d6. A 3 x 4 pick. Then remove any die that rolls bad. That is my way.

I think 5-6 d6s is more or less the "AVERAGE" quantity. Yahtzee the MOST popular and common dice rolling game has FIVE (5) d6s. So I would think that the average is around 5 to 6 d6s (at maximum).

While I understand some Gamers are WILLING to roll 2 different pools of 5d6s for a total of 10 d6s... That is NOT the usual. That is a smaller specialized segment of the market.

Personally I feel 5d6s is the limit (when I think about dice and dice pools and allotting different d6s to stats from a pool, etc). In my own attempt to fix the Mana system in some TCGs/CCGs I was using 3d6s all white and players could choose HOW to allocate the dice (which of the three stats used by the CCG). That was in the past since I've moved on from "battling" or "skirmishes" to a more "intellectual" game focusing more on mathematics.

Bottom line: I think you should cap at five (5) d6s. Custom or not. Colored or not.

Cheers!