[Math] Number of ways to roll five 6-sided dice with sum 7

combinationscombinatorics

I would like to determine the number of possible outcomes that are possible to roll five fair $6$-sided dice where the sum of the faces adds up to $7$. I am interested in the case where order does matter, for example if the dice were arranged in $3,1,1,1,1$ they can also be arranged as $1,3,1,1,1$, etc.

Edit: So far the only possible solution I can find is to write out the combinations of five numbers (between $1-6$) that when summed will give a value of $7$. Then for each of the combinations I was attempting to find the number of ways which this combination could be formed. This was very long-some since I don't know an easy way to do this. For example is there a formula to describe the number of ways the numbers $1,2,2,1,1$ can be rearranged? I would then have to apply this formula to each of the combinations of numbers. I was hoping somebody could explain an easier way.

Thank you.

Best Answer

Each die always has value at least $1$, so we may as well ask for the number of ordered sequences $(a_1, \ldots, a_5)$ such that $a_1, \ldots, a_5 \in \{0, \ldots, 5\}$ and $a_1 + \cdots + a_5 = 2$. This is only possible if (1) one of the $a_i$ is $2$ and the others are all $0$, or (2) two of the $a_i$ are $1$ and the others are all $0$. There are only ${5 \choose 1} = 5$ possibilities for the form and ${5 \choose 2} = 10$ possibilities for the latter, and so only $5 + 10 = 15$ ordered sequences satisfying the criteria in total.