Basic D & D question

Being new to Baldurs Gate and D & D in general I have many questions about gameplay, but i'll only ask one right now

I often see numbers such as 4d8 or 1d8 describe things like damage or armor class or weapon stats. Could someone please explain how to figure out these numbers and how they pertain to judging the value of the spell or weapon? I understand the added bonus's such as +2 or +1 but the first numbers baffle me. I play everquest and am used to weapon's described as having a delay and damage number and would like to figure out D & D's system as well.

Thanks very much,

Mels

Well, the 1d8 means that you roll 1 dice with eight sides, giving you a possible result from 1 to 8 and then 4d8 means 4 dices with 8 sides with a result from 4 to 32.

1D8: one 8-sided dice (that is you can roll from 1 to 8 )
2D4: two 4-sided dice (that is you can roll from 2 to 8 )