RHD as level adjustment (3.5)

[Goonthegoof]

I was looking through the various level adjustments in the monster manual and it occured to me that they all the level adjustment causing templates and races made the characters who chose them significantly worse than if the character had just been an ordinary human. Then an idea came to me- Why not replace the level adjustment with racial hit dice? Racial hit dice are always sub par to class levels but a lot better than nothing at all, would the game really be unbalanced if when taking the vampire template instead of a LA of 8 you had to take 8 hit dice of undead?

This would translate as
lycanthrope: 2 HD of animal
Half Fiend: 4 HD of outsider
Ghost: 5 HD of undead
and so on. Now I'm sure this isn't too balanced, so I'm posting here asking everyones opinion on how much each template is worth.

[Latronis]

potentially on a case by case basis yes.

And not all racial hit dice are worse than all base classes :P

[Goonthegoof]

True, but only in cases of dragon vs samurai and the like.

[Latronis]

Monstrous Humanoid is almost worth a fighter, better even if you get some nifty tricks. Outsider hitdice are pretty solid too, especially ones with spellcasting based on hitdice.

But what i would do if you want a quick and dirty method, is maybe half the Level adjustment and then allow them to buy off the rest with the creature in questions rhd counting as level dependant effects for it's favored class. That should slow right power progression and not ultimately cripple them. Depending on how nice the extras are ofc.

[Latronis]

also i'll just add you are aware that the lycanthrope template already gives you X animal HD? For example were-tiger needs 6 animal hd before the +2LA so that would be 8 animal RHD.... Not a very good deal is it? Slightly better than 6rhd+2LA though.

[DracoDei]

...with the creature in questions rhd counting as level dependant effects for it's favored class. That should slow right power progression and not ultimately cripple them. Depending on how nice the extras are ofc.
This part seems a bit garbled to me.

[Kobold-Bard]

It definitely makes them better because at the very least you're getting some HP and skill points etc. And you can now use those HD for Practised Spellcaster so your CL doesn't fall as low as your spells/day.

Still not great though <commence subtle advertising> http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=165439 <end subtle advertising>

[Latronis]

This part seems a bit garbled to me.

Take the creature's Favored Class (assign an appropiate one if need be) and then any Racial Hitdice stack with favored class levels for determining level based effects.

Except those with spellcasting by hitdice.