Question: I'm trying to create a custom field that takes today's date and adds a random number of days to it and returns that new date? Any ideas?

Answer: 
As of yet, there is no way to generate a random number using just formula functions (that I know of without hitting the compiled character limit).

An alternative is to make it a standard date field and create a new trigger on the object:

```
trigger <name> on <object> (before insert) {

public integer MAX_RANDOM_VAL = 10;

for (<object> s : trigger.new) {
    integer daysToAdd = integer.ValueOf(Math.rint(Math.random() * MAX_RANDOM_VAL));
    s.RandomDate__c = Date.today().addDays(daysToAdd);
}

```
An alternative solution, if you are not able to (or don't want to) add a trigger, is to generate a pseudo random number using an auto number formula + a last modified date value converted to a value all modded together.

This is not really random, but it's random enough for generating arbitrary dates.

Your formula would look something like this:

```
TODAY() + 
MOD(
 VALUE(Unique_Number__c) + 
 VALUE(
 SUBSTITUTE( 
 SUBSTITUTE( 
 SUBSTITUTE( 
 SUBSTITUTE(TEXT(DateTimeValue(CreatedDate)), ":", ""), "-", ""), " ", ""), "Z", "")
 )
,30)/3

```

You'll end up with a list of dates like this (I've added the value generated as an extra column to show you the randomish number that gets generated)

![Account list](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Z7vyb.png)

**Note** You'll have to add an an Auto Number field - Mine is called `Unique_Number__c` - it is just a straight number field with no formatting.