Hi everyone,

I am an experienced BG player and have great knowledge and understanding of most of the rules regarding stats, hit and armour class... but...

could somebody please explain to me how the damage system works?

1D4 and 2D8 ???

What is a hit dice? As fighters level up their hit dice goes to from 1 - 9 then goes 9+1, 9+2

... if anybody knows what this means please help.

six of spades, could you particularly pay a visit here [img]smile.gif[/img]

cheers

Rockstar

What it means is say you do 1D4 damage then its a 4 sided dice roll, and your opponent will take 1 - 4 damage and 2D8 will be two 8 sided dice dealing anything from 2 to 16 damage, at least thats what ive always thought ;)

By "hit dice", what you're referring to in this instance is the hit points of your character rather than a damage roll.

You may well be aware that Advanced Dungeons and Dragons uses weird looking dice that look like this;
http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/noncgi/dm.gif

As MM-Rogovich indicates, 2D4 translates to 'two rolls of a four-sided die' (a four-sided die looks similar to a pyramid - in the image above it's the black one on the end) - at worst the rolls of two four-sided dice will be two, at best eight.

Fighters use a ten-sided die for their hit point rolls (as I'm sure you know, hit points are how much damage the character can endure before 'shuffling off this mortal coil'), so therefore in the example 9+3 translates to 'nine rolls of a ten sided die plus three points'. The character's Constitution score will also affect a character's hit points.

According to the manual, Mages and Sorcerers use a four-sided die for hit points, Thieves and Bards a six-sided die, Clerics, Druids and Monks an eight-sided die (albeit it says ten-sided in the SoA manual), and warriors a ten-sided die. Note that although the ToB manual says Barbarians use a ten-sided die, the game itself indicates a twelve-sided die roll.

One guide you might find of use is Dan Simpson's explanation of AD&D rules, being the last entry on this page at Sorcerer's Place.

He means 9D10+3. "Take the sum of nine rolls of a D10, and then add 3."

Note that, for hitpoints, this is somewhat misleading, although technically accurate: While it's true that a Level 4 Fighter's hp will be 4D10 (plus any CON modifiers), the game does not actually roll 4D10 when you hit Level 4, and make that number be your new hp total. It only rolls one D10, and adds that to your total.

Technically, Six, if you had accumulated enough XP to be a 4th level fighter, but at the time were level 1, then that rule would apply.

This is true.

And then, hit points is the absolute amount of 'health' you have, while hit die(dice) means the amount of DICES you've rolled to get there. Even if you've rolled 4d10 instead of 4d4 it's still four hitdie. Essentially hitdice is the same as the LEVELS of a creature. Sometimes, for balancing reasons, a critter gets some bonus hitdice, while still being the same 'level'. This is what is referred to in 'only creatures with x hitdice or less are affected'.