You do not roll dice in the One Piece Card Game, but you do need dice or counters at the table: Bandai's tournament rules tell you to bring them, because power changes by the thousand every turn and note taking is not allowed at official events. Four to six clearly marked D6 in two colours cover a normal game. Our One Piece dice are 16mm resin D6 with a DON!! face or a character emblem, made to sit beside the deck they match.
This guide covers what the dice are for, how many to bring, what makes a die legal at a Bandai event, and which of our DON!! counters and character dice fit your Leader.
What Do You Track With Dice in the One Piece Card Game?
Power, mostly. Each DON!! card attached during your turn is worth 1000 power, so the numbers on the table move in round thousands. A single D6 showing 1 to 6 covers a bonus of 1000 up to 6000 without any arithmetic. That mapping is a table habit rather than a printed rule, so agree it with your opponent before the first attack.
The moment it bites is mid-turn. Your Leader has DON!! attached, a Character adds more power, someone plays an Event, and the attack is suddenly worth a figure nobody at the table can state with confidence. A die placed beside the card is the sanctioned way to remember it.
Bandai also suggests dice for online play, where the setup uses them to track hand and Life count on camera. In person you rarely need that, because Life is a physical stack of face-down cards from your own deck, and the number your Leader starts with is printed on the Leader card itself.
Why Does Bandai Tell You to Bring Dice If the Game Never Rolls Them?
There is no keyword, effect or step in the game that asks you to roll, and the official comprehensive rules do not mention dice once; even the starting player is decided with rock-paper-scissors. The official list of what you need to play is one Leader card, a 50-card deck and a DON!! deck of ten cards.
The tournament rules are a different document. The list of what to bring to an event includes any additional dice, power counters or tokens your deck or gameplay may require, and a section on supplementary objects allows small objects to track changes during a game. The reason most players miss: note taking is not allowed at official Bandai organised play events. You cannot write down that a Character is sitting at 7000 power until end of turn. A die can hold that number for you.
How Many Dice Do You Need for One Piece?
Fewer than people expect. One die per Character you are actively buffing covers most turns, so four to six is plenty for a normal game, and a second colour lets you separate power from anything else you are tracking. This is not a wargame where a unit throws twenty dice at once: each die holds one number, and if you need ten of them on the mat at the same time the board has become harder to read, not easier.
Careful: Counter Means Two Things Here
[Counter] in square brackets is a keyword printed on cards, a value you add during the Counter Step to survive an attack. A counter in the physical sense is a die or token sitting on the mat. They are unrelated. Playing a card for its [Counter] value has nothing to do with the die keeping score next to it, and the tournament rules use the phrase power counters for the physical objects.
Which Dice Are Legal at a Bandai Event?
The tournament rules set conditions, and they are more specific than most people expect:
- Dice must be unweighted.
- They need clear markings, so a beautiful die you cannot read at a glance is a liability.
- They must not damage cards or other tournament property.
- They must not be confused with other game elements, so nothing that resembles a card or a sleeve.
- No offensive text or images.
- Nothing that makes it hard to see how many cards are in an area, or that covers cards.
Those last points are why a 16mm resin die with soft edges is a safer table companion than a heavy metal one with sharp corners sitting on top of your sleeves. For the current wording before an event, see the official One Piece Card Game rules page, which also hosts the tournament document.
DON!! Power Counter Dice
Our DON!! power counter dice carry the DON!! mark on one face and pips 1 to 5 on the rest, so a die showing 3 beside a Character reads as +3000 at a glance. They come in eleven colours, which is how most players separate attacking power from everything else: Fire, Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, White, Grey, Black, Tricolor. Pick one colour for power and a second for anything you track on the opponent's side.
Character Dice by Leader
Each character die is a 16mm resin D6 with the emblem engraved on the six and pips on the other faces, so it works as a normal counter and still reads as a six. These are the ones we make, grouped by crew; the names are fan descriptions of the designs.
Straw Hat crew
- Luffy: Yellow Straw Hat, Smiling Pirate Captain, White Grinning Fighter, Red Giant Fist, Red Bounce Fighter, White Moon Fighter, Pink Steam Fighter
- Zoro: Green Swordsman Pirate
- Nami: Orange Navigator
- Usopp and Sogeking: Brown Sniper Pirate, Yellow Masked Sniper
- Sanji: Black Flame Cook
- Chopper: Blue Reindeer Doctor
- Robin: Black Archaeologist
- Franky: Red Cyborg Shipwright
- Brook: White Skeleton Musician
- Jinbe: Blue Fish Man Warrior
- Going Merry and Thousand Sunny: White Goat Ship, Yellow Lion Ship
Family, allies and rivals
- Ace: Orange Flame Hat, Orange Flame Pirate
- Sabo: Black Top Hat, Black Revolutionary Fighter
- Yamato: Red Oni Warrior
- Law: Blue Death Surgeon
- Kid: Red Magnet Pirate
- Bonney: Pink Age Shifter
- Marco: Blue Phoenix Commander
- Bon Clay: Pink Swan Dancer
- Perona: Pink Ghost Princess
Emperors and legends
- Shanks: Red Emperor Pirate
- Whitebeard: White Titan Pirate
- Kaido: Purple Beast Dragon
- Blackbeard: Black Darkness Pirate
- Gol D. Roger: Red Pirate King
- Buggy: Blue Clown Pirate
Marines, Warlords and the World Government
- Akainu: Red Magma Admiral
- Aokiji: Blue Ice Admiral
- Kizaru: Yellow Light Admiral
- Marines: White Marine Cap
- Doflamingo: Pink Puppet Master
- Rosinante: Pink Heart Officer
- Boa Hancock: Red Snake Empress
- Kuma: Black Cyborg Warlord
- Enel: White Thunder God
- Imu: Black Hidden Eye
- Den Den Mushi: Beige Snail Phone
Which Set Should You Get?
For most players: two or three DON!! counter dice in one colour, one more in a second colour, and the character die that matches your Leader. That is five or six dice, enough for any normal turn, and the Leader die is the one you leave on the mat all game. If you run several decks, keep the DON!! dice and swap only the character die.
Everything above is 16mm resin, engraved and painted by hand. TheTopDice products are unofficial, fan made accessories and are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or licensed by Bandai, Shueisha or Toei; all trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The Short Version
The One Piece Card Game never asks you to roll a die, but official events ask you to bring dice or counters and do not allow note taking. Power moves in thousands, so a D6 beside a card is the standard way to track it. Take four to six clearly marked, unweighted dice in two colours: DON!! counters for power and a character die for your Leader.
