EL20, minimal hit dice?

[Mindstab_Thrull]

So, for the lulz, something I've always wanted to try putting together: a character with effective character level 20 and as few hit dice as possible. Thus far, out of PHB/DMG/MM and Unearthed Arcana.. I'm at 2.

Celestial Half-Dragon Half-Celestial Pixie (with Otto's irrestistable dance) with three major Storm Giant bloodline levels

I have it written up here (http://www3.sympatico.ca/eleibrock/DnD/OMGPixie.txt), just needing to handle skills and equipment. I'd rolled up 15 15 13 13 11 10 for base stats.

I'm curious to see if anyone can come up with anything "weaker", ie can we make it one hit die somehow?

Mindstab Thrull
Im in ur brainz, nommin ur sanity

[Piggy Knowles]

Replace half-celestial with ghost and you'll drop to 1 HD.

[dspeyer]

Getting LA 19 isn't too hard, especially with the Evolved Undead template from Libris Mortis (1 LA, can be taken repeatedly).

Getting LA 19 and being effective is hard. Hardly any hit points makes it very easy to kill, and decent offenses are hard to come by too. Even a pixie's irresistible dance is going to have trouble overcoming spell resistance or mind blank.

[Chronos]

There are tons of ways to do it. Heck, there are well over 20 different LA+1 templates out there, most of which can stack with each other.

[Volthawk]

Ghost or Vampire would probably be helpful since as well as the abilities they give they both have a way of coming back easily after your tiny hp pool gets you squished. Ghost does have the problem that it's a level check, and your tiny amount of levels would make that hard. Vampire doesn't have that problem (and also is a lot quicker - one hour plus the time it takes the reach the coffin versus the 2d4 days of the ghost), but has the issue that you need to be within nine miles of your coffin and has the assorted vampire weaknesses.

They do both also open up Evolved Undead for more LA usage, but the low HD you have mean that most (if not all; I can't remember if they have any spells that you can use with just 1HD) of the SLAs you get are unusable, and the fast healing isn't very useful with your tiny hp pool.

[Piggy Knowles]

I'm away from my books right now, but don't vampires need to have more than 4 HD? I thought that 4 HD and below creatures became vampire spawns, rather than vampires.

[Taelas]

Yes and no.

The template itself has no such requirement, but the only described way of becoming a vampire (a vampire draining a vicim's Con score to 0 via blood drain) requires HD 5+.

[Desril]

Not entirely true.

Vampires can only create vampires if the target had more than 4HD, but Vampire Lords create vampires no matter what.

[Taelas]

So it does. I had to look it up, having not heard of a 'vampire lord' before.

It is online; anyone interested can check it here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a). It is 3.0, though, and I have not been able to find an update for it. Keep that in mind. (For example, it does not have a listed level adjustment.)

[Mindstab_Thrull]

According to the Monster Manual (I don't have Libris Mortis handy):

Ghost can be applied to: abberation, animal, dragon, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, or plant.
Vampire can be applied to: humanoid or monstrous humanoid.

I started with a fey, which became a dragon, and then an outsider. Vampire can't be applied to either of those, and if I apply Ghost to a half-dragon pixie, I can't use Celestial (the creature must be corporeal, and undead isn't an option) or Half-Celestial (also must be corporeal).

Celestial is +2, Half-Celestial is +4. Ghost is +5. Barring "rules-breaking" (ie, applying a template to a non-eligible creature), I'm further ahead this way instead of the Ghost.

As for these LA +1 templates.. I don't know of any outside the MM itself. Is there a list of templates + their LA's somewhere?