Racial Hit Dice why?

[12owlbears]

For my next game I really wanted to make an ogre character but the +2 LA and the four racial hit dice make it really unappealing. Why do racial hit dice exist? Are they supposed to balance monster races isn't that what level adjustment is for. If we house rule them out will it unbalance the game?

[Togath]

Racial hit dice exist to make a monster different from a pc race..
Because wotc wasn't the best at coming up with fun character races =3
Frankly, you probably would indeed be fine just ruling them to only have level adjustment instead of a level adjustment+racial hit-dice.

[Novawurmson]

Play a Goliath (from Races of Stone, +1 LA, no hit dice) and call yourself an Ogre?

[ryu]

Barring extreme cases I generally find it better to simply remove LA and all things like it from the game.

[Ralcos]

Do you have Savage Species?
If not, does your DM allow LA buyoff?

Savage Species is a good book for those that want to play monsters in a campaign. Your ogre, for example, has levels of Ogre to keep up with the rest of the party. It's 4 mandatory Ogre levels in the build, but that's okay!

And it's LA that was made to balance races, not RHD. RHD (as far as I know) is supposed to represent the monster's inborn toughness that a single Hit die wouldnt suffice.

[BWR]

Ask yourself this: is being an ogre worth 2 levels in a class?
Is it worth 4 levels in a class?
You've already decided it isn't worth 6 levels in a class.

What you can do is use the Pathfinder variant. They've done away with using RHD and LA as a measure of how powerful races are as playable things and just use CR. An ogre is CR 3 and would count as a 3rd level character before your start adding classes.

[Urpriest]

The Racial Hit Dice exist because they're what makes it so you're playing the monster. Wanting to play an Ogre means wanting to play the creature in the Monster Manual, RHD and all. Otherwise you would just play a Half-Ogre.

Now that said, there are ways around this, but it requires changing up what an Ogre actually is. The various Homebrewed Monster Classes do a decent job of this.

[Gwendol]

RHD are what they are, at least they grant feats and BAB. The LA however is bogus and should simply be ignored.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Racial Hit dice exist because monsters aren't intended as PC races. They were never intended as playable races. The rules of the game are just an attempt to balance the advantages/disadvantages but in the end the game was designed around PC's playing races whose powers depend entirely on class.

[Rebel7284]

Play a Half-Ogre and flavor it as being mostly Ogre?

[ShurikVch]

If you want to play an ogre, you can take a Half-Ogre (race) and apply a Half-Ogre template to it. Two halves make whole, right? "Other half, also ogre"(c) :smallbiggrin:

I really like an outsider RHD. Allow to make a skillmonkey with full BAB and monk saves

[salt3d]

I feel compelled to lavish fanboy-level praise on Urpriest, as his guide to monsters has been enormously helpful to me in understanding them (including RHD). There is a link to the guide in his signature (see his post above).

I used the guide to help create a Savage Species style progression for an Erinyes/Pleasure Devil mashup I used as a cohort. This worked out pretty well, although my PC died two sessions later so I didn't get to see it progress very far.

My replacement PC was a legion devil with another legion devil cohort. The DM and I removed some of the less-PC-compatible features to reduce LA to make it more palatable.

Removing RHD (and LA, for that matter) would make for some very powerful PCs and potentially an unbalanced party. If, on the other hand, all the PCs are doing it, it's not really any different than just playing a higher-level game.

[ryu]

I feel compelled to lavish fanboy-level praise on Urpriest, as his guide to monsters has been enormously helpful to me in understanding them (including RHD). There is a link to the guide in his signature (see his post above).

I used the guide to help create a Savage Species style progression for an Erinyes/Pleasure Devil mashup I used as a cohort. This worked out pretty well, although my PC died two sessions later so I didn't get to see it progress very far.

My replacement PC was a legion devil with another legion devil cohort. The DM and I removed some of the less-PC-compatible features to reduce LA to make it more palatable.

Removing RHD (and LA, for that matter) would make for some very powerful PCs and potentially an unbalanced party. If, on the other hand, all the PCs are doing it, it's not really any different than just playing a higher-level game.

The type of player that know enough to take advantage of LA in a real way that isn't just simple number upping also knows full well why the DM is doing it. Namely because playing some combination of standard races for the billionth time is samey, and picking crippling options to escape that is annoying. Why even factor it into CR unless the race choice is doing something significant?

[Grollub]

Ask yourself this: is being an ogre worth 2 levels in a class?
Is it worth 4 levels in a class?
You've already decided it isn't worth 6 levels in a class.

What you can do is use the Pathfinder variant. They've done away with using RHD and LA as a measure of how powerful races are as playable things and just use CR. An ogre is CR 3 and would count as a 3rd level character before your start adding classes.

I also believe in Pathfinder.. it starts out as cr3/ 3 lvl penalty.. but those remove as you level up ( sort of like buyoff, but free ), as those initial "levels" become more irrelevant.

If you really didn't want any adjustment.. just talk to your GM, and ask if you can play a "baby/teenage" ogre.. where they havent acquired any RHD

[Thurbane]

There's always the extremely cheesy option of getting your RHD permanently level drained down to 1, then swapping out your single RHD for your first class level (assuming the DM would let this rule apply to non-humanoids - there is some debate about whether this rule applies to non-humanoids as well).

As a DM I would never let this fly (I would always make a player re-take the RHD up to their original value as he leveled back up), but I have seen games where it is kosher.

[ShurikVch]

There's always the extremely cheesy option of getting your RHD permanently level drained down to 1, then swapping out your single RHD for your first class level (assuming the DM would let this rule apply to non-humanoids - there is some debate about whether this rule applies to non-humanoids as well).

As a DM I would never let this fly (I would always make a player re-take the RHD up to their original value as he leveled back up), but I have seen games where it is kosher. What if this particular ogre was killed and raised several times? AFAIK, in this case HD cannot be restored...

[TuggyNE]

Why do racial hit dice exist?

They exist because a) monsters need HD of some sort to be of any use at all and b) when you play a monstrous race, you play that race, complete with everything it gets. 3.x values transparency pretty highly.

[Suddo]

Because an Ooze needs 3 HD. If RHD didn't exist then they could have hitdice because they don't have enough INT to take class levels.

And why are you complaining about balance in 3.5. They give a bunch of tools some aren't as good as others. If you want the Ogre to be better ask your DM and talk about what you should do.

[Thurbane]

What if this particular ogre was killed and raised several times? AFAIK, in this case HD cannot be restored...
Sounds like it would work by RAW, but it would still be strongly discouraged at my table.

[Suddo]

Sounds like it would work by RAW, but it would still be strongly discouraged at my table.

You could always make that cost a certain amount of WBL and try and give him the worst items for his class.

[Chronos]

HD can always be restored, including the HD lost from being raised. It just requires you to go out and earn that experience again.

[AuraTwilight]

HD can always be restored, including the HD lost from being raised. It just requires you to go out and earn that experience again.

Except monsters that advance by Character Class can never take Racial Hit Die again.

[Urpriest]

Except monsters that advance by Character Class can never take Racial Hit Die again.

Heck, the same is true for monsters that advance by hit dice. Advancement by Hit Dice modifies the base monster and is DM controlled, the only creatures that can do it with XP as PCs are True Dragons, and they've got a special progression.