Quote Originally Posted by OneWinged4ngel View Post
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.
Level Adjustment does suck but it is in place for a reason. However, since it's so poorly defined, and there's no real guidelines that WotC holds itself to, LA as a whole is worse than it would be if it followed strict rules. At least then you could alter the base creature to your own ends without guesswork.

A better alternative to Level Adjustment, though admittedly not much better, are racial hit dice. At least they give you BAB, feats, skills, saves, etc. instead of just a placholder that says "Look, you gain XP as if you were this much higher level."