Originally Posted by
OneWinged4ngel
LA sucks. I recommend not using it ever, because it's almost never worth it compared to actual class levels. LA practically says "We're going to penalize you really, REALLY heavily for playing this race, so that you'll never, EVER play a monster, or if you do you'll die horribly unless the DM coddles you, you silly person who wants to play outside the box!"
Heck, if we're going to be playing Core Only, you can just look at Polymorph or Alter Self: "I have no LA, but I have your race!" You can take that LA race's wings and strength score and whatever, and not lose a single class level for it.