What does Hit Dice mean in paper RPG as opposed to Hit point

[Enigma]

I'm starting to use the D20 modern game but I'm confused when they use Hit Dice in the monster list. What is the purpose of the Hit Dice? I thought it was for figuring out the creatures hit points. But the monster list has both Hitpoints and Hit Dice listed.

Help??

[TheFeniX]

Hit dice is kind of like the "level" of the monster. If a monster has 4 hit dice, then it rolls 4D8(I think, maybe it's D6) for it's HP. The hit dice also affect the monsters THAC0 IIRC.

I haven't played AD&D for 7 years so I may be sketchy on this. I believe HD also affected some other monster abilities but I'm not sure.

[Sriad]

Generalizing hit dice as a monster's level is pretty much on the money. In the old days it was used to determine a monsters hit points by rolling, say, 7D8 for a 7 HD monster, until RPG companies figured out that this was a huge pain in the ass.

So now the hit dice system just used for things like how many minions monsters have, what spells they are succeptable to (Raoul the Lich King can directly control 25 HD of undead, say) and, for original monsters, it can be used to calculate how much experience they're worth.

[Enigma]

Generalizing hit dice as a monster's level is pretty much on the money. In the old days it was used to determine a monsters hit points by rolling, say, 7D8 for a 7 HD monster, until RPG companies figured out that this was a huge pain in the ass.

So now the hit dice system just used for things like how many minions monsters have, what spells they are succeptable to (Raoul the Lich King can directly control 25 HD of undead, say) and, for original monsters, it can be used to calculate how much experience they're worth.

But how would that work under the D20 system?

[Sriad]

But how would that work under the D20 system?

I must confess, I am unfamiliar with the D20 system. I imagine, though, that it is just what the second half of my post and that of TheFenix was about, and it's pretty directly analogous to the level of the monster.

[Enigma]

But how would that work under the D20 system?

I must confess, I am unfamiliar with the D20 system. I imagine, though, that it is just what the second half of my post and that of TheFenix was about, and it's pretty directly analogous to the level of the monster.

I don't think it could be used for how many henchmen the creature has. I know for sure it can't be used to determine XP because there's a system already setup to calculate the XP.

[Steven Snyder]

I'm starting to use the D20 modern game but I'm confused when they use Hit Dice in the monster list. What is the purpose of the Hit Dice? I thought it was for figuring out the creatures hit points. But the monster list has both Hitpoints and Hit Dice listed.

Help??

Hit Dice are useful for a few things Hit Points can't tell you.

Certain spells will affect a certain number of Hit Dice of foes. Like the D&D Sleep spell will affect 2d4 hit dice of creatures. This gives you an indication of just how many of your foes are affected. It also works for Turning Undead, as you roll 'damage' which is just a number of Hit Dice you affect. So if you are faced with a horde of 2HD undead and roll that you affect 18 Hit Dice, then you would affect the first nine of the undead.

Also certain spells have different effects for creatures with more Hit Dice, some spells outright kill foes with low HD, but only stun the higher HD ones.

Finally if you drain/reduce the constitution score of an opponent, you would need to know how much to reduce the hit points of the creature by. So if you knocked off 2 points of CON via poison and were deading with an 8 HD creature, it would lose 8 hit points from it's maximum.