Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Classics dice set review

I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for quite a few years now, but I've never owned my own set of dice. Yes, despite all the jokes about DnD players collecting shiny clickity-clack math rocks. And despite having a weekly game night until Covid was a thing. Anyway, that's why I was excited to learn, when Hasbro announced their Cartoon Classics line, that buying the entire line would net you a complete, playable set of dice as well. It's the reason I bought the second half online rather than waiting to see if they'd show up in stores!

There are seven dice in a standard set, but eight in this set because either Dungeon Master or Venger just had to include a special D20. Yes, it's the signature die of D&D, the famous icosahedron that has lent its name as a shorthand for tabletop games as a whole (love to get together with my friends and play some D20), but one in the set should really be enough.
Odds of any face: 5%
I rolled: 7 on the big one, 2 on the little

Moving down, we have a dodecahedron, with its pentagonal faces. This is probably the least-used die in a set, unless you're playing a barbarian or carrying a few certain weapons. I've often found myself pondering that the 8 is the button on a microwave that gets pushed least often; the D12 is the dice-set equivalent of that.
Odds of any face: 8.3%
I rolled: 3

"Pentagonal Trapezohedron" sounds pretty impressive, but it's just a D10. A standard D&D set actually comes with two of them: one numbered 0-9, the other numbered 00-90. (Ten-sided dice aren't unheard of in other games, but they usually go 1-10.) The one with the double-digits is a "percentile" die: you roll it to get the tens place, then roll the other to get the ones. If you roll all zeroes, that's 100.
Odds of any face: 10%
I rolled: 6 and 40

Attach two pyramids together at the base and you'd have an octahedron. D8s get used for more weapon types than the D12 did, but it's still not a die that sees heavy use for most players.
Odds of any face: 12.5%
I rolled: 5

Is there any die more exotic than a Tetragonal Trapezohedron? Yes, many, because that's just an obfuscating way of saying "a cube" - in other words, the kind of die that comes with every board game your family keeps in the cabinet under the TV and never plays. While a proper set only includes a single D6, most players will amass a slew of them since results often require multiples.
Odds of any face: 16.6%
I rolled: 6

Forget Legos, the real household caltrops are D4s, because they're shaped to always land with a pointy side up. They get used a lot for special class bonuses and abilities, as well as healing and some damage.
Odds of any face: 25%
I rolled: 4

The Cartoon Classics dice set is swirled red with pale yellow numbers. Obviously, how well your dice look like they belong together will depend on his the bright and dark plastics get blended: like, my D4 looks a lot lighter than the rest, because the bright plastic ended up showing more than the dark plastic did. Still, lump all these together and drop them on your table, and everyone else will know they belong together.

Another reason to get the entire line of toys was the packaging. It did have its flaws, no question, but on the left side of each box was a part of a larger image - collect them all, and they'll line up on your shelf looking great, displaying all nine characters.

Venger & Dungeon Master | Hank | Diana | Bobby & Uni | Presto | Eric | Sheila

The art is standard stock images of the characters (as seen up at the top of this review) in front of the amusement park where they first left our world. And if you never noticed, it also dictated the order in which we'd review the figures. Weirdly, the graphic designer either forgot or was told to ignore the way the characters in the first series were meant to overlap: like, one arm of Hank's bow stretches over to Venger and Dungeon Master's art, as it should, but the other stops short instead of continuing onto Diana's; Diana's leg disappears when it gets near Hank, and her staff doesn't continue over by Bobby. Meanwhile, Presto, Eric, and Sheila all overlap appropriately... except that Presto's elbow is nowhere to be seen near Uni. This line truly was a case-study in "small details that should have been done better."

I'm glad I got the whole thing, though, if only because I now have a cool set of official Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Classics dice. Clickity-clackity, I roll to attackity!