# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 3e/3.5e/d20 > Player Help d&d 3.5 Help with things that could reduce racial hit dice

## samduke

like the title says I am looking for help with things that could reduce racial hit dice

I know Necropolitan template, Game Effect: Immediately upon opening its undead eyes, a new necropolitan loses a level
but that makes one Undead and there are not a lot of templates that change from undead to humanoid

I know that some form of wight or the like for level drain could work , but I need this to apply before the 1st class level if possible.

is there any other 1st party way to reduce racial hit dice ?

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## Condé

Most of the Time people are suggesting level drain shenanigans but IS generally regarded as cheesy at best, even more since you are basically doing that in your backstory.

I have been looking for a long time and you are note the first one to ask this... And as far as I know there is no magical solution or very convenient one.

Now that I'm thinking about it you could play an anthropomorphic animal. Some of them have 2hd and no LA. You could then apply necropolitan.
 As you said you are no humanoid but at least you could start with 1hd and still have reduced your racial hit dice technically. 

Otherwise I fear your only chance is to ask your dm if he could make some sort of Savage progression of the race you want to play. It sucks since you still got the full racial hit dices but you can play at the same level than anyone else at thé table.

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## samduke

well a few possible things that may work

race X does not matter in this case

take Necropolitan  type changes to undead, Ritual of Crucimigration, Game Effect: Immediately upon opening its undead eyes, a new necropolitan loses a level

then at level 1 use that feat there to take
Human Heritage ( Races of Destiny p152)
Prerequisite: Half-human race or human-descended race
Benefit
You are treated as a humanoid with the human subtype for the purpose of adjudicating all effects. If you are not a humanoid, your type changes to humanoid and you gain the human subtype, This feat may only be taken at 1st level

that combination while semi cheesy seems like it might work


One I looked at that is questionable is 
Lesser (Player's Guide to Faerun, p.190)
begins play with a number of negative level adjustments equal to his races level adjustment. For each negative level adjustment, he takes the following penalties

the way it reads because Racial hit dice are a factor of level adjustment otherwise known as ECL, it may be possible to use this.

otherwise I am failing to find a way to reduce that racial hit dice

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## Beni-Kujaku

There are lots of ways to gain negative levels, which then become actual lost levels after a day. Soul Eater, lots of undead, Energy Drain, Soulbreaker weapons... 
A creature with only one hit die can replace it with a class levels. Losing your familiar makes you lose a lot of XP, which could make you lose a hit die (example: a young steel dragon, 9 RHD, caster level 5), takes Acquire Familiar with its first level feat. It summons a toad, then eats it. It loses 1800XP. But it's still hungry, and however many toad it eats, it can never get full, not with that feeling of losing energy instead of gaining it. In the end, the steel dragon only has one RHD left, but still gets its 3 sorcerer caster levels.). 

All of these are very cheesy. Why do you want to remove racial hit dice?




> that combination while semi cheesy seems like it might work


Do not attempt that before talking to your DM about the expected power level of the game. "Cheesy" is only a word we use when we feel like a combo is clearly not RAI, but it's not really the problem here. The problem is what your DM would allow.




> One I looked at that is questionable is 
> Lesser (Player's Guide to Faerun, p.190)
> begins play with a number of negative level adjustments equal to his races level adjustment. For each negative level adjustment, he takes the following penalties
> 
> the way it reads because Racial hit dice are a factor of level adjustment otherwise known as ECL, it may be possible to use this.


There are a few problems here. Lesser only applies to Planetouched races which don't have RHD, and ECL has not been synonymous with level adjustment since we transitioned to 3.5. Nowadays, ECL=RHD+LA+class levels. Level Adjustment (LA) is only the starting ECL of a creature minus its number of RHD.

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## Condé

> well a few possible things that may work
> 
> race X does not matter in this case
> 
> take Necropolitan  type changes to undead, Ritual of Crucimigration, Game Effect: Immediately upon opening its undead eyes, a new necropolitan loses a level
> 
> then at level 1 use that feat there to take
> Human Heritage ( Races of Destiny p152)
> Prerequisite: Half-human race or human-descended race
> ...


The issue with the PGtF negative level adjustment is it was not designed for hit dice but for LA exclusively. Because it gives you stacking penalties equal to the LA. I cannot work with hit dice because, you would have the penalty but you would still have the hit points. And so, even if you had -2 or even more at every roll, you would still have double or even more health than anyone else. 
(And other benefits from having higher hit dice, like ASI, feats etc...)

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## Beni-Kujaku

Do note that if you think a monster as printed is too weak as a player character, there are two threads on this website, the LA assignment thread (you can find the archive of reassigned LAs here) and the negative LA thread (in my description) which can help you. The LA assignment thread aims at assigning more fair LAs to monsters, even those who weren't assigned one by WotC, while the negative LA thread aims at finding the right number of RHD where a monster would be playable if it didn't have LA (in the case of monster who feel too weak even with LA+0 and a starting ECL equal to their number of RHD). I strongly suggest taking a look at it if you didn't. What kind of creature would you like to play that you want to reduce its ECL?

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## samduke

> There are lots of ways to gain negative levels, which then become actual lost levels after a day. Soul Eater, lots of undead, Energy Drain, Soulbreaker weapons... 
> A creature with only one hit die can replace it with a class levels. Losing your familiar makes you lose a lot of XP, which could make you lose a hit die (example: a young steel dragon, 9 RHD, caster level 5), takes Acquire Familiar with its first level feat. It summons a toad, then eats it. It loses 1800XP. But it's still hungry, and however many toad it eats, it can never get full, not with that feeling of losing energy instead of gaining it. In the end, the steel dragon only has one RHD left, but still gets its 3 sorcerer caster levels.). 
> 
> All of these are very cheesy. Why do you want to remove racial hit dice?


well as stated and will do so again I need the reduced hit dice, to happen before the very first class level if possible, level drain effect on a 2 rhd thing with 0 class levels IIRC kills the 2 rhd thing.

why = game build rules reasons





> The issue with the PGtF negative level adjustment is it was not designed for hit dice but for LA exclusively. Because it gives you stacking penalties equal to the LA. I cannot work with hit dice because, you would have the penalty but you would still have the hit points. And so, even if you had -2 or even more at every roll, you would still have double or even more health than anyone else. 
> (And other benefits from having higher hit dice, like ASI, feats etc...)



again in reading the whole text 

Two variant systems are presented in the following sections. 
Both provide ways of starting a character of a powerful race with a 1st-level party of adventurers

I am applying this variant
Powerful Races at 1st Level
...
lower portion states..



> When the character gains enough experience to advance a level, he does not actually gain a class level. Instead, his negative level adjustment is lessened b y 1 a t each n ew level attained until it reaches 0. At that point, the character has bought off his racial level adjustment. He has one class level and his full racial level adjustment, so his* effective character level (ECL)* equals 1 + his level adjustment.


and it is that text that makes me think questionable beyond the just removing a level adjustment for planetouched

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## samduke

Alternativly

can does anyone know of a template that will change type from undead to humanoid or monstrous humanoid

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## Beni-Kujaku

> well as stated and will do so again I need the reduced hit dice, to happen before the very first class level if possible, level drain effect on a 2 rhd thing with 0 class levels IIRC kills the 2 rhd thing.


No it doesn't. A wight drains only one level. You then have a 1rhd thing.




> why = game build rules reasons


*sigh* still talk with the DM to see if it's okay. Tell them what you wanted to play and why it can only be done without rhd.





> again in reading the whole text 
> 
> Two variant systems are presented in the following sections. 
> Both provide ways of starting a character of a powerful race with a 1st-level party of adventurers
> 
> I am applying this variant
> Powerful Races at 1st Level
> and it is that text that makes me think questionable beyond the just removing a level adjustment for planetouched


"Powerful races at 1st level" and "Lesser versions" are two different variant rules that you seem to mistake for one. There's no real reason why you couldn't apply the "one negative level and -1 AC per ECL above one" rule of "Powerful races at 1st level" to any monster. A steel wyrmling (3 RHD, LA+2), would hence get 5 negative levels and lose all its natural armor. That said, with this variant you still couldn't take a class level as your 1st level, since the only way you can advance is to remove one negative level each time you should level up until you have none left. Also, I must stress these are variant rules, and the DM is the final judge on whether or not they are available.




> Alternativly
> 
> can does anyone know of a template that will change type from undead to humanoid or monstrous humanoid


There's none 1st party. Undead is at the very top of the template pyramid, up there with Construct. And there's no incarnate construct for undead (except Resurrection I guess, but resurrection costs quite a bit and is very hard to come by at ECL 2).

Edit: I mean, chaining Corrupted-Dustform-Incarnate Construct could work, but you'd be saddled with LA+5 (and needing to justify in backstory how you died in the desert then were reanimated after decades as a dustform creature)

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## Rebel7284

> like the title says I am looking for help with things that could reduce racial hit dice
> 
> I know Necropolitan template, Game Effect: Immediately upon opening its undead eyes, a new necropolitan loses a level
> but that makes one Undead and there are not a lot of templates that change from undead to humanoid
> 
> I know that some form of wight or the like for level drain could work , but I need this to apply before the 1st class level if possible.
> 
> is there any other 1st party way to reduce racial hit dice ?


What's your race exactly?  Are you qualifying for something specific with your race?  This matters a LOT.  The best way to remove Racial HD is to be a Lycanthrope and then remove it after you qualified for what you need



> The only other way to remove the affliction is to cast remove curse or break enchantment on the character during one of the three days of the full moon. After receiving the spell, the character must succeed on a DC 20 Will save to break the curse (the caster knows if the spell works). If the save fails, the process must be repeated.


Otherwise you're stuck with reincarnate random rolls until you get a body you like (with fewer HD) or level drain to 1 HD and then start taking class levels.

Wish or Miracle might be able to pull this off directly, or at least modify what the next reincarnate target will be.

Edit: Looks like 3.0 edition also has True Reincarnate which is like Reincarnate but allows you to roll twice for the race.  Is also 9th level.  Probably worse than combining with Wish, but your mileage may vary!
Of course both Reincarnate and True Reincarnate might be able to be combined with other re-roll abilities such as the Luck domain or Alter Fortune, although it's not 100% certain if random selection from a table counts as a roll even if it's designed to be done with dice... but if this works, hire a dozen level 1 clerics for a day from a local lucky temple instead of paying for wish!  :Small Big Grin: 

Edit2:
Found via google, reincarnate variants:
Reincarnate Variants

Published variants to the 4th-level Drd spell reincarnate [trans] (PH 270) include the following:
    Kieth Baker's Dragonshard's column "Druids of Khorvaire, Part Two" presents an alternative reincarnation chart for the Eberron campaign setting. https://web.archive.org/web/20210920...ebds/20051024a
    The 4th-level Drd spell last breath [trans] (SpC 130) reincarnates a target that's been dead 1 round or less, and that target suffers no level or Constitution loss.
    The 8th-level Drd spell cocoon [conj] (SpC 49-50) reincarnates the target, and that target suffers no level or Constitution loss. The spell's effect takes a week to kick in.
    The 8th-level Drd spell dire reincarnation [trans] (Dungeon #100 Web Enhancement "The Lich-queen's Beloved") reincarnates the target as a nonhumanoid Monster Manual creature. This spell has its own chart. Note: Link goes to free PDF. https://paizo.com/dungeonissues/100/...nhancement.pdf

Edit 3:
On the psionic side:
Mind Switch, True gives you a new body.  
Astral Seed + Shenanigans works too

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## ShurikVch

Note about the all of "Energy Drain" solutions: there exists the school of thought which says after the ED you *must* spend XP to regain your racial HD - *before* you would be able to take *any* class levels

To avoid it is relatively easy: just repeat death/raise cycle - until you have only 1 (or however few you, actually, need) HD left
Bringing Back the Dead:



> *Level Loss*
> Any creature brought back to life usually loses one level of experience. The characters new XP total is midway between the minimum needed for his or her new (reduced) level and the minimum needed for the next one. If the character was 1st level at the time of death, he or she loses 2 points of Constitution instead of losing a level.
> 
> This level loss or Constitution loss cannot be repaired by any mortal means, even _wish_ or _miracle_. A revived character can regain a lost level by earning XP through further adventuring. A revived character who was 1st level at the time of death can regain lost points of Constitution by improving his or her Constitution score when he or she attains a level that allows an ability score increase.


The only issue with this method (besides the monetary cost, obviously) - is angry Marut

One more way to ditch some HD is the Petitioner template: if you OK to be 2 HD Outsider with no skills or feats. (Some planes are lacking Planar Commitment for their petitioners, and unmentioned LA in 3.5 update booklet means it' +0 now)

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## pabelfly

> To avoid it is relatively easy: just repeat death/raise cycle - until you have only 1 (or however few you, actually, need) HD left
> Bringing Back the Dead


The issue with this idea is that the DM might well make you take your racial hit dice again. 

Racial hit dice are usually there for a reason though. I have not encountered any playable race with RHD that wasn't notably more powerful than a general ECL 0 race, and as a DM, I would be very wary of agreeing with any method of reducing that RHD for a player.

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