Monster Hit Dice in D&D

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[andreadichiara]

Specifically in the case of an owlbear it's 7d10 because Brown bears have 4d10 and giant owls have 3d10

[Ozhar]

In older editions monsters had "levels" in their race which gave them hit die

[angrybajur]

It's a holdover from when monsters had levels.

[Tigercup]

You can also give it a specific feature, such as the demilich has, which states it always has the maximum possible hitpoints from its hit dice to avoid using like 80d4

[raphaelregnault]

To be more precise, the quantity of hit points is a factor to determine a monster power level. You have a table in the Bestiary that specifically says how many HP a monster should have depending of their Challenge rating. A bland CR3 creature is supposed to have about a hundred hp, an AC of 13 and do around 24 damage per turn. Then you adjust those statistics depending of the nature of the monster.

For Example :
Owlbear is a Large creature, meaning it has advantage against a lot of checks like grapples. It is a monstruosity, meaning it is naturally resistant to a big deal of enchantment spells like Hold Person. It has 40 ft of movement, so it is harder to kite. It has a +7 to hit, so it's more likely to hit that the average CR3 monster who is suppose to have +6 only, and it has two attacks with different types, meaning it's more likely to do damage.

All those advantages means you have to reduce something to compensate, so it looses 40ish HP compared to the average CR3.

[WallySketch]

In older editions, the number of hit die was equivalent to the "level" of the character/monster, but not really in 5e.
Most spells and skills involving monsters now use the CR instead of number of hit dies. You don't summon 10 hit dies of monsters (like in 2e), but 2 CR of monsters for instance (8*1/4, 4*1/2, 2*1 or 1*2).

Hit dies are still kind of linked to the level of monster in 5e. A lot of "pure" spell casting monsters like the lich or the archmage archetype have a spell caster level equivalent to their number of hit die, for instance. But it is a more distant and cryptic relation than before.

[djm.o.d.]

I will never forget the priceless moment a younger DM was asking me about encounter building, and he tells me "I tried a test battle and think its too strong." I simply said "have you tried lowering it's hit points" and in shock he said "You can DO that?!" lolol

[mr.pavone]

Old School D&D awarded 1d8/level for the monsters.
There. That took less than a minute to read.

[questingbeast]

Half of a Monster's CR is calculated by their health and AC, an owlbear has 59 hit points, and AFTER you get that number you assign it hit die. DnD also does alternating averages so it's 4 x 5 and 3 x 6 to get 38, +21 for 7 "levels" of constitution modifiers, and you get 59.

[grosstoastie]

I always figured it was a health range, so higher or lower level parties could have a relative challenge. A 28 hp owlbear vs. a 91 hp owlbear are two very different encounters. Also the hp can be adjusted within that range to accommodate the narrative. For example, the party fights 3 or 4 owlbears(28 hp) as they work their way towards the nest but as they approach, the alpha owlbear(91 hp) towers over the others and is a "mini boss" variant without too much work on the dm's part.

[cameronlancefrii]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but the thing is... Hit Dice come from challenge rating. The DMG walks you through making homebrew monsters, and the basics of finding its challenge rating is figuring out its attack and damage, and then its hp and ac. These things give you 2 challenge ratings, then you average them, and that's the challenge rating of the monster. So, a monster with just a d6 damage, no mod, and only a +2 to attack, but 600 hp and 18 ac would have a cr of about 10. 600 is an arbitrary number that I came up with, but I can reverse engineer from this. What size the creature is determines its hit dice size, so a large creature would get the d10. What's it's con mod? Let us say 4, so each hit dice would give an average of 9.5 hp. 600 divided by 9.5 is 63.15, so we'll go with 63 hit dice. 63 hit dice comes out to 598.5, so officially that'd be 599. As the DM, it is within my rights to run this monster as a 600 hp creature- And I would probably say that it's just the slightest bit over average. But I can also run this creature with MAX hp, that being 10+4 instead of the average 5.5+4, for 882. I should probably recalculate this creature's cr for that max health, but I would leave the hit dice alone- this is a "named creature" I'm throwing at my players. Similarly, if I wanted to be an over achiever, I could roll the hp for every enemy instead of taking its average. Every goblin you face is no longer 7 hp, they're random. Did I roll double ones for a minimum of 2 hp? Or did I get double sixes for 12 hp? I dunno. I'm too lazy to do that for my players. But the green dragon that I'm implementing as a boss monster? I rolled its health and gave it a name, probably a personality. I didn't bother about recalculating its cr 'cause I use milestone though, 'cause I'm just that lazy.

[LordDarkur]

I just noticed that the number added to the hit die is the con stat times the number of hit die.

[kenziemathews]

He did us dirty with that final "BLALHWBRB-". Absolutely dirty.

[lordroyalnightmare]

Hit dice are effectively a reflection of a monster's "level" (not CR, this is different). DnD 3.5's monster manual had a great section for creating monsters and improving monsters. Hit dice were basically treated like levels, and it was suggested that if you increased a monster's hit dice, you would advance they're attack bonus and saving throws (3e/3.5 mechanics that proficiency bonus replaced in 5e) as though they were leveling up, and told you how based on their creature type. This would also tell you when it made sense to give the monster new feats/abilities or buff their stats. Monsters would also have notes stating when to increase their size category if they had enough hit dice, which the monster manual also had rules for (usually stat buffs and increased damage dice). When I look at a monster, its hit dice tell me what level it is for the purpose of determining things like it proficiency bonus.
I recently needed to improve a spectator to make a middling powered beholder. I gave it some more hit dice, so I bumped its "proficiency bonus", gave it an ability score increase, and bumped its size category. This increased the DC on its abilities (I decided they were based on Wisdom, something the 3e/3.5 books actually told you) and its attack bonus. I decided increasing its size would ups its hit die type by one and increase its strength a little. I also gave it a few more eye rays, just taking slowing and telekinetic from the beholder, and gave its wounding ray one more damage die. I also decided to give it two legendary actions, and made them the same as the beholder's. It still needs some testing, but I think it will serve its purpose.

[DellyDelDelmor]

We must band together to stop the one who is first again! Players and DMs alike, ASSEMBLE!

[patrickanderson]

It's mostly cause an Owl Bear is basically a Level 7 Bear

[doomskullv]

7 on its con for ever 1 above 10 it gains a hit die +it's con modifier.
- my local dm

[jordanfears]

A great example of a good answer being absolutely wrong

[Mr_GoR_]

Honestly, that's it. How many hit dice it has depends on how much hp you want it to have with its Con bonus as a factor.

[NRMRKL]

I believe the formula is n(a+c) where:
n=number of hit dice
c=con modifier(minimum of 1)
a=average result of die based on creature's size (tiny d4, small d6, medium d8, large d10, huge d12, gargantuan d20)