Different d4 shapes and where to buy them

This is by far the most common d4 layout and used in the vast majority of commercially available polyhedral dice sets. Just look at any shop that sells mass produced dice and you’ll have several options for d4s like this. The Dice Shop Online and Dice Emporium also sell single dice if you don’t want a full polyset.

🛒 The Dice Shop Online
🛒 Dice Emporium

D4s like this were more common before the late 1990’s, but they are still made today, although they are far less abundantly seen these days. Some factories in China make polysets with bottom-read d4s to date. One of the brands who have a few sets with bottom-read d4s are Wiz Dice (although it’s usually the earlier iterations of some of their sets), Koplow and the remaining stock that Crystal Caste and eM4 Miniatures still have available from the D&G factory in England whose pyramid bottom-read d4s were always bottom-read.

🛒 Wiz Dice via Dark Elf Dice
🛒 Crystal Caste
🛒 eM4 Miniatures
🛒 Koplow via The Dice Shop Online

As far as I know, three companies currently sell d4s where the tips of the pyramid are flat with a number in it. One of them is Impact Miniatures, another is The Dice Lab through Math Art Fun, and lastly Die Hard Dice, who call them Archimedean d4, currently only available as metal options in their Hexbreaker series.

Kraken Dice has a mould where the d4s are top-read but with a truncated tip that has the number on it as well. Kraken tend to switch back and forth between their different moulds and only select sets are available with d4s in this mould.

🛒 Impact Miniatures via TDSO
🛒 Math Art Fun
🛒 Die Hard Dice
🛒 Kraken Dice

This is a concept that was first seen in an aluminium dice set from a brand named AKO Dice. Their polyhedral sets include a d4 that only has one number per face, but when you roll the die, only one number will be shown as upright, the others will be sideways. The upright number is the one you rolled.

This d4 style was also used in a Mario Party themed 3D printed dice set you used to be able to buy on Etsy which is now being remade by scam shops in significantly inferior quality.

^{Image source: AKO Dice shop}

🛒 AKO Dice
🛒 Mario Party Dice va Etsy

This shape goes by different names. It is known as Arch d4 (Role 4 Initiative), Infinity d4 (Dice Envy) and Modern d4 (Q-Workshop). R4I has started making some of their sets with d4s like this, Dice Envy sells more elongated versions of them as Infinity d4 (also included in some of their exclusive sets) and Q-Workshop has adopted this shape you can get in some of their designs.

The Arcanist’s Armory has also run two Kickstarters with healing potion dice in the same shape as the Dice Envy Infinity d4, called Healer’s Dice.

🛒 Role 4 Initiative
🛒 Dice Envy
🛒 Q-Workshop
🛒 Arcanist’s Armory

This shape was first introduced by Dragon Dice in the mid-1990’s and was actually patented by them (the patent has run out by now). D&G also adopted this shape and they were sold by Chessex for a brief period of time in the 90’s before they were forced to stop due to patient infringement. I wrote more on the subject in another article if you’re interested in the history.

I don’t believe dice in a uniform wedge shape are currently still available anywhere, The Dice Shop Online is out of stock on all of them. The Dice Lab through Math Art Fun offers skew versions of it where all sides have different lengths.

🛒 Math Art Fun (skew dice)

These are also sometimes called barrel dice, although in the dice making community the term crystal d4 is more prevalent. Crystal Caste released some sets they call crystal dice that include a d4 like this, although these are not produced anymore today. They still have some remaining stock in their online store.

There are some iterations of this design that has been adopted for more creative dice projects, such as bullet dice or potion bottle dice.

🛒 Crystal Caste

This is a concept that was adopted more in recent years in the handmade dice community, first seen in sharp-edged dice but now also beind adopted by the mass-production facilities in China. Some shops also list them as trapezoid or trapezoidal d4.

These are available all over Etsy and in retail stores that carry Chinese sets that come with a shard d4.

The Dice Lab through Math Art Fun has a d4 that is technically top-read that they call Orbiform d4. The Math Art Fun website describes them as the following:

Orbiforms have the same width in every direction. If you put a book on three of these it will roll smoothly on the table, just as a book on three spheres would. Unlike conventional tetrahedral four-sided dice (d4’s), these dice roll smoothly. The shape is mathematically fair, giving equal probability for the four results.

^{Image source: Math Art Fun shop}

🛒 Math Art Fun

These aren’t widely available, but a company called Blaster Light recently ran the Orbidice Kickstarter that included a spherical d4.

^{Image source: Orbidice Kickstarter}

🛒 Orbidice Kickstarter

A company called BlocHeads released a top-read spherical d4 with indents they call Magic Missile d4 that they are selling in their Etsy shop.

^{Image source: BlocHeads Etsy shop}

🛒 BlocHeads Etsy Shop

Gamescience first sold these in several different colours many years ago. Chessex seems to have some leftover stock in a few different colours. A company I don’t want to name or recommend due to their business practices and misconduct recently ran a Kickstarter that included a polyset where all dice were double-dice (except the d20 which was based on a d42).

🛒 Chessex

I don’t believe these exist with Latin numbers outside of the double-dice Kickstarter set mentioned above. A company called DoubleSix Dice released TripleFour dodecahedrons years ago, but these had symbols rather than numbers. Only three of the designs are still in stock today.

The Dice Shop Online recently released a series of d12s in different number concepts (DodecaDice) that include triple-4 versions. These are currently only available with pips.

Chessex sells triple-4 dodecahedrons with Roman numerals.

^{Image source: DoubleSix shop}

🛒 DoubleSix Dice
🛒 The Dice Shop Online
🛒 Chessex

Dice like these were made in the 60’s are said to be the first polyhedral dice set made, known as Zazz dice that went with a game of the same name. The d4 in this game was actually not meant to roll a single number but the three faces that were showing would be read rather than the number that was covered and facing the surface the die was rolled on.

Pyramidical d4s where you’re meant to read the number that is face-down would not be practical in gameplay, which is why they are not being commercially produced.

A concept recently pitched by someone on Reddit who was developing a digital dice roller app and wanted the d4 to be a little more unusual so they presented this concept (which they weirdly named after me because I asked how they envisioned this would look like).

For this concept, the pyramid-shaped d4 is translucent and there is a smaller pyramid shape inside that faces towards the tip of the die so that the number could theoretically be read from the top.

This design would be impractical as a physical die, firstly because the light refraction in a translucent pyramidal d4 would make it hard to read the number inside, or if you made it with a frame, the frame would be in the way. Secondly, it would be difficult to produce on a mass production scale because of the product processes of physical dice.