[3.5] A Question About LA Races with Racial HD

[TaintedLight]

I haven't been able to clear this up entirely by reading the entries on my own, and I have a feeling that I may have been getting screwed in the past for this.

I've made and played enough characters of the normal PHB variety that I'm kind of sick of them, so I decided to flip through MM1 and find a more interesting choice. I decided to play a minotaur barbarian, so I applied the template to my character and I thought I was done. Our party was starting at ECL 15, so my DM told me that I should give the character its 6 HD of monstrous humanoid and then seven levels of barbarian to top it off with the +2 LA.

This is the main question: Do the 6 HD count towards my ECL or should I be a 13th level barbarian?

[tyckspoon]

They count. A monster's starting ECL is Racial Hit Dice+LA.

[Ashdate]

You'll be a 7th Level Barbarian Minotaur (6 levels of minotaur, 6d8 HD + 7d12 Barbarian hitdice, and of course, a +2 level adjustment).

- Eddie

[TaintedLight]

Thanks for the clarification guys.

[KillianHawkeye]

In case you are wondering, this information can be found toward the bottom of page 7 of the Monster Manual 3.5.

Add this number to the creature's total Hit Dice, including class levels, to get the creature's effective character level (ECL).

[Fostire]

Don't forget that you get BaB, saves, feats, and skill points from racial hit dice too. Also remember that you don't get quadruple skill points from your first barbarian level but from your first racial hit dice.

In the case of the minotaur you get:
-d8 Hit Dice.
-Full BaB
-Good Ref and Will saves.
-Skill points equal to 2 + Int modifier

[TaintedLight]

Alright, so the minotaur stuff all makes more sense now.

This question is tangentially related: If you have a creature with 21+ racial hit dice that then goes and gains class levels, does its BAB continue increasing or does it cap at its hit dice? I know that the Epic Level Handbook says that there is no limit to a creature's BAB from hit dice, but once a character reaches epic levels their BAB increases by one at every odd level regardless of their class. For example, say there is a creature with 23 HD of outsider that gains 5 levels of fighter. What is it's BAB? If it were to gain an additional 16 levels of fighter, what would it be then?

[Chronos]

"Epic level" is based on total number of HD. So something like a solar, with 23 HD, is already epic, and any class levels it takes will follow the epic rules.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Once your Character Level (racial hit dice plus class levels) reaches 21+ you are considered to be epic level. At that point you use the epic base attack and base save progressions for class levels gained, but not for additional racial hit dice. Check the Epic FAQ for more information.

Racial Hit Dice are not optional. Just look at the Sand Giant in MM3, it gets Str +16, Dex +10, Con +10, Wis +6, Cha +2, 40 ft land 10 ft burrow speed, large size, and other abilities for a +4 LA. If you didn't have to gain the 15 HD of Giant this would be an extremely overpowered race, but it was given the +4 LA because the developers decided it was comparable to a level 19 character.

Minotaur is a fairly underpowered race, if you don't want the racial hit dice consider making a Half-Minotuar (page 11) instead. It should have the level adjustment increased to at least +2, especially with the size increase, but even if it were +3 LA it's a more powerful alternative to the standard Minotaur.