Racial Skill Points

[Conners]

I was wondering about Racial Skills (example: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gnoll.htm )

Say I had a 1st level gnoll rogue. Do I get the racial skill points instead of the rogue skill points?

[Jasdoif]

A Gnoll Rogue 1 has its two racial hit dice and a rogue level. You get 5 times (2 + Int) skill points for the racial hit dice using the racial class skills (conveniently listed as Listen and Spot), and 8 + Int skill points for your rogue level using the rogue class skills.

A racial hit die counts as your first level, so you get four times the usual amount of skill points for that one. That's why you get 5 times (2 + Int) for racial skills, instead of 2 times (2 + Int).

[Conners]

OK, thanks Jasdoif.

[MrNexx]

For what it's worth, I usually let people replace Racial HD with NPC classes... so if you're a 1st level gnoll rogue, you might instead have 2 levels of Warrior, or Expert, or even Adept behind you, instead of racial HD.

[Fhaolan]

Just as a note, sometimes the writers of the MMs/SRD miscalculate the skill points for the creatures. It's a minor glitch but when you're converting one of them for a PC, every skill point can help.

For example, the Worg is missing a couple of points in the standard write-up in the MM and SRD.

[Conners]

For what it's worth, I usually let people replace Racial HD with NPC classes... so if you're a 1st level gnoll rogue, you might instead have 2 levels of Warrior, or Expert, or even Adept behind you, instead of racial HD.

Wouldn't that make them more powerful?

Just as a note, sometimes the writers of the MMs/SRD miscalculate the skill points for the creatures. It's a minor glitch but when you're converting one of them for a PC, every skill point can help.

For example, the Worg is missing a couple of points in the standard write-up in the MM and SRD.

Interesting. You think they would've done something about it by now. Although, what can they do?

[BardicDuelist]

For what it's worth, I usually let people replace Racial HD with NPC classes... so if you're a 1st level gnoll rogue, you might instead have 2 levels of Warrior, or Expert, or even Adept behind you, instead of racial HD.

I think this is a good idea (since it doesn't screw you for skills as much), but I wouldn't allow Adept as a choice, as caster levels might out balance it.

[Krellen]

Wouldn't that make them more powerful?

Honestly, it depends on what racial type you're replacing. Humanoid and Animal are relatively weak types; Dragon and Outsider, conversely, are very strong. All of them are roughly analogous to NPC classes, because their major drawbacks are a lack of class features.

[MrNexx]

Wouldn't that make them more powerful?

What it winds up doing is giving them more skills, IF they take the option (as pointed out, a dragon or outsider would be stupid to take this; something with humanoid or monstrous humanoid levels wouldn't be that bad off). It generally doesn't do much more than give them additional class skills, or the option to drop their HD to drastically increase their skills (i.e. trade warrior-equivalent for expert-equivalent).

Levels of Adept (or my arcane variant, the Hedge Wizard) are less of an issue than you would think; while they're useful, they don't stack with other spellcasting levels, so it's just an added feature to the character, which generally leaves them weaker, physically. At worst, if it you have a lot of Racial HD, it allows them to qualify for PrCs soon after their creation, but that's fairly minor (since they're already eating up chunks of levels with LA and sub-par classes like Adept).