character creation and jermlaine race

[Zhepna]

Hi,

we start a new game and I'm looking to play the race jermlaine from from the Monster Manual II.
I saw the following comment online and don't understand what it means:

''They do get a half racial HD of Fey leveling, though, which is sometimes very very good, since that fraction may technically be rounded down for things like experience required to level, which would give a Jermaline something like an extra 6+int skill points compared to your average character.''

I don't understand why the faction have to be rounded down, what is the impact and why it give 6+int skills.

I just want to make sure I apply the right amount of skills.

Thanks and have a nice day.

[Kaleph]

Not sure, but I believe that the confusion arises from a poorly worded paragraph of the MM. Hopefully is my understanding right.

Humanoids with 1HD or less lose their racial HD and replace it with the 1st level of the 1st class they take. I'm quite sure that this rule applies not only to humanoids, but to any race with <= 1HD regardless of the type - this interpretation comes in the first place from the fact that WotC wrote its manuals assuming that all PCs are humanoid; all rules should apply to non-humanoids as well, unless explicitly stated so.

Now, the jermlaine is a fey and has 1/2 racial HD; since it's not a humanoid, a literal application of the MM rule implies that this 1/2 HD is not lost when acquiring class levels.

I believe you can ignore this weird aspect, not only because of the explanation I gave you above, but also since the SRD explicitly extends the "replace HD" rule to all Monsters, as you can find out here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm#otherStatisticsforMonsters).

[Zhepna]

Thanks a lot for your answer.

[Thurbane]

There is a bit of debate about this: some people will cite sources that the rule that allows 1HD creature to replace their RHD with their first class level only applies to Humanoids.

But the more widely accepted reading is that it applies to any creature that only has a single RHD.