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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 6203718" data-attributes="member: 32740">No.  HD (at least up through 2E) is fairly disconnected from what 3E would call the Challenge Rating.  High hit dice monsters can be very easy to kill.  Low hit die monsters can have a lot of attacks or special abilities that make them tremendous threats that are not indicated by sheer hit dice.Dragons are actually a good example of how HD are not a good metric to use by itself to gauge the degree of challenge.  A large, ancient red dragon in 1E has 11 hit dice and 8hp per die, but a small party of 11th level PC's should not likely consider one to be a tremendous threat.  The mechanics of the game multiplies the ability of player characters as they increase in level to take on ever greater numbers of opponents and increasingly massive and powerful singular opponents.  That last one can be especially problematic because "Boss fights" become more difficult to make them work.Almost none.  In AD&D you'd probably do best to compare PC ability against actual experience value which at least takes into account not just raw hit points but special attacks and defenses.The Old School way, however, was mostly just trial and error anyway.  You throw it at the players and see if it sticks.  If they handle it too easily then you mentally note that next time you need more of those monsters, or different tactics, or just note that they're a lesser threat.  There are just so many variables though - not just monster hit dice but how well you roll those hit dice, whether you or the players are rolling better or worse for your attacks that night, how much magic item equipment the PC's have, what spells the casters actually try to use, how aggressively and intelligently you run the monsters, etc.  Prior to 3E the game just wasn't built to follow a mathematical formula at all.</blockquote>

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