Playing a Minotaur without Racial hit dice

[Lloyd-Starbuck]

I was wondering if it possible to play a Minotaur or any other monster class without their racial hit dice. by this i mean that instead of calculating ECL by adding hit dice to challenge rating, could i give up the racial hit dice and start with only the challenge rating as my ECL.

[WolfLordBran]

As far as I can tell, there's no way to do that. The closest would be to use Savage Species and play the racial class from 1- wherever (don't have my book in front of me). Someone else might know a way, but there's none that I'm aware of.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Dragonlance has a slightly different minotaur with I believe just LA, no RHD.

[torrasque666]

Dragonlance has a slightly different minotaur with I believe just LA, no RHD.
Don't even have LA. Its playable from 1.

[Zaydos]

And there's always the option of talking with your DM and figuring out an LA for a HD-less minotaur between the two of you. Or Dragonlance's.

[Seerow]

Personally I tend to think of it as the other way around, and ECL should be CR or Racial Hit Dice, whichever is higher, with LA being exclusively for templates or races that use class levels instead of hit dice. But that's houserule territory. By RAW no, there is no way to remove racial hit dice from a race that has them. The closest thing (outside of specific variant races like the Dragonlance Minotaur cited above) is probably the racial classes from savage species. Even there eventually you are taking the full RHD and LA, but it lets you play the character starting from a lower level.

[Flickerdart]

By RAW no, there is no way to remove racial hit dice from a race that has them.
You can always get drained by a wight until only 1 RHD remains, and then take a class level to overwrite it.

[Seerow]

You can always get drained by a wight until only 1 RHD remains, and then take a class level to overwrite it.

I stand corrected.

No RAW way that will not result in having a DMG thrown at your head immediately.

[Seclora]

You can always get drained by a wight until only 1 RHD remains, and then take a class level to overwrite it.

Or any of the other ways to permanently lose levels, raise dead for instance. Cheesy? A wee bit. Genius? Most certainly!

[M Placeholder]

Yep, you can play a Minotaur straight off the bat with no level adjustment. While most Krynnish races should be disallowed by any sane DM (The ******* Elves, Gully Dwarves, Kender), Minotaurs fit well within a party.

Here are the stats from the Races of Ansalon Splatbook.

Minotaur Racial Traits
Minotaurs possess the following racial traits:
• +4 Strength, –2 Dexterity, –2 Intelligence, –2 Charisma.
Minotaurs are large and powerful, but not very agile.
From youth, minotaurs focus on developing their
muscle over their minds. Minotaur arrogance can be
offensive to other races.
• Medium: As Medium creatures, minotaurs have no
special bonuses or penalties.
• A minotaur’s base land speed is 30 feet.
• +2 natural armor bonus.
• Gore: A minotaur may use his horns as natural
weapons to make a gore attack, dealing 1d6 points of
damage plus the minotaur’s Strength modifier. If the
minotaur charges, his gore attack deals 2d6 points
of damage, plus 1 ½ times his Strength modifier. A
minotaur can attack with a weapon at his normal attack
bonus and make a gore attack as a secondary attack (–5
penalty on the attack roll and half Strength bonus on
the damage roll).
• +2 racial bonus on Intimidate, Swim, and Use Rope
checks. Minotaurs are familiar with the sea and
naturally adept at skills useful among seafarers.
• Minotaurs may take the scent special quality as a feat.
(See the Monster Manual.)
• Automatic Languages: Common, Kothian. Bonus
Languages: Kalinese, Nordmaarian, Ogre, Saifhum.
• Favored Class: Fighter.

[defiantdan]

There is also the half-minotaur template you can add for just +1 LA from a dragon Magazine. it's a pretty sweet and insane template. Stack it with Half-ogre and it's still just a +1LA. For fun make it Feral. Base creature is a water orc :P

[Jgosse]

Why not use the half minitaur template from Dragon Magazine.

[sideswipe]

i would allow any monster race to use its favoured class as levels instead of RHD (with the exception of its favoured class being a T1, i would have to check).

so a minotaur would be allowed its HD in barbarian levels instead of monsterous humanoid.

[Urpriest]

I was wondering if it possible to play a Minotaur or any other monster class without their racial hit dice. by this i mean that instead of calculating ECL by adding hit dice to challenge rating, could i give up the racial hit dice and start with only the challenge rating as my ECL.

You never add challenge rating to ECL. Challenge rating has nothing to do with ECL.

And if you actually meant Level Adjustment, no, Level Adjustment is calculated with a particular amount of RHD in mind. You'd have to homebrew up a new Level Adjustment to go with your new race.

[Psyren]

You can create a custom race (e.g. using PF's Race Builder) to come up with something Minotaur-esque that's playable from 1 with 0 LA. Then just add an ad-hoc ability that gives it the size increase and other minotaur goodies once it reaches a certain HD, similar to how Raptorans get flight a little ways in.

[Inevitability]

On Half-Minotaur: If I remember correctly you can technically take it twice. Full minotaur for +2 LA! :smalltongue:

[ZamielVanWeber]

On Half-Minotaur: If I remember correctly you can technically take it twice. Full minotaur for +2 LA! :smalltongue:

I would beat you with the DMG before I let you take that twice. Probably because I smacked you for taking it once.

[Greenish]

If you took half-minotaur twice, you should start with a small race, you'll end up with better strength. Be a half-minotaur half-minotaur halfling!

[Thrice Dead Cat]

If you took half-minotaur twice, you should start with a small race, you'll end up with better strength. Be a half-minotaur half-minotaur halfling!

That sounds like something I half to try.