The balance of racial hit dice.

[Endarire]

Classes are powerful.  They grant spiffy abilities, including casting, manifesting, and maneuvers.

Racial hit dice are boring.  Outsiders and Dragons give the best racial hit dice, and people seem to want to avoid gaining them if they can get class levels instead.

However!

Assuming you're a race with no LA and no racial HD, what if you could gain 4 racial HD instead of each class level?  Regardless of your current creature type, you could choose Outsider or Dragon racial HD since they're the best.

Over a 20 level build, at what point would you stop taking racial HD and take class levels?

[Mister Freeze]

Never as a caster (even a gish), as a warrior it would be hard to justify them over ToB classes, or even fighter for some feats.  The saves and skill points are nice, but they're not worth expending levels.  For a skill monkey I can see the full BAB and good skill points being useful as stopgaps if you can't yet qualify for a prestige class you want, but even then it's very iffy.

[Maat Mons]

Well, I'd definitely rather have HD 4 / warblade 1 than have warblade 2.  The first one gets 2nd level maneuvers and I can take martial study with the extra feat to make up for the extra maneuver known I'd get with warblade 2. 

I'd consider the trade up to 12 HD for 3 levels.  That ultimately puts me 3 levels ahead on the level of maneuver I can access (4th level maneuvers at ECL 4) and about 1 down on maneuvers readied and stances known. 

Edit: I know you said no LA, but imagine this option on a phrenic creature. 

[Tr011]

gain 4 racial HD instead of each class level?

Outsiders gain full BAB, d8 HD, best saves and 8+int skills per level, with 4 Racial HD instead of a class level you could totally rock without any class levels at all. Qualifying for PrCes would be very easy and with the exception of some dips (i.e. Barbarian 1) you could use them for great mundane builds.

Btw I do think even some casters could consider it, because a wizard 7/outsider 4 has all that a wizard 7 has + better saves + more bab + more skills + one more feat (that would be Practised Spellcaster, so you end up at CL 11). It would be a trade on CL and useful stuff vs. actual spell progression, which is quite OK for some builds (IIRC you could just Outsider 4/wizard 2 for very much skills and you'd qualify for Abjurant Champion, so at ECL 4 you'd have a BAB +6, in the end you get a CL boost of 2 in this build and more than full BAB while still having the spell progression of a sorcerer. Powerful in my opinion, gives that you have much more skills than a rogue)

edit: Oh, and tanks would be really easy to make. If you take an Outsider and grab Improved Toughness, you gain 4d8+16+4xCon hp per level and +2 to all saves per level. With that BAB you only need Wrathful Healing and Power Attack to have a decent in-combat heal. A couple of more things and you got your tank complete.

[Mister Freeze]

Ah, 4 racial hit dice per level.  Yeah, that's way more tempting, and awesome in fact.  Reading comprehension fail for me.

[Tr011]

Oh, and with that rule everyone can be a perfect caster by just getting all levels in Racial HD and taking Leadership for a caster (i.e. you play ECL 10, you pick 40 RHD and Leadership for a Human Wizard 39. Epic Win in it's very meaning. Oh and make sure your character takes 43 ranks in Craft [Basketweaving] while you're at it)

[Rebel7284]

There are some amusing tricks with this system such as a 2-level entry to Ur Priest and 5 level entry to the epic destiny paragon paths.

[Endarire]

Assuming Leadership and company are banned, what are the most powerful applications of this proposal?

[Mister Freeze]

Assuming Leadership and company are banned, what are the most powerful applications of this proposal?

Outsider3/urpriest9

Hello there epic spellcasting at level 12!

[X-Codes]

Factotum 8/Dragon 48

Oh yeah, I'm inspired, alright... Can you tell how inspired I am?

Sorry, on a Factotum kick lately... It's funny how many things they do well.

[Tshern]

gain 4 racial HD instead of each class level?

Outsiders gain full BAB, d8 HD, best saves and 8+int skills per level, with 4 Racial HD instead of a class level you could totally rock without any class levels at all. Qualifying for PrCes would be very easy and with the exception of some dips (i.e. Barbarian 1) you could use them for great mundane builds.

Btw I do think even some casters could consider it, because a wizard 7/outsider 4 has all that a wizard 7 has + better saves + more bab + more skills + one more feat (that would be Practised Spellcaster, so you end up at CL 11). It would be a trade on CL and useful stuff vs. actual spell progression, which is quite OK for some builds (IIRC you could just Outsider 4/wizard 2 for very much skills and you'd qualify for Abjurant Champion, so at ECL 4 you'd have a BAB +6, in the end you get a CL boost of 2 in this build and more than full BAB while still having the spell progression of a sorcerer. Powerful in my opinion, gives that you have much more skills than a rogue)

edit: Oh, and tanks would be really easy to make. If you take an Outsider and grab Improved Toughness, you gain 4d8+16+4xCon hp per level and +2 to all saves per level. With that BAB you only need Wrathful Healing and Power Attack to have a decent in-combat heal. A couple of more things and you got your tank complete.

Emphasis mine. Wizard 17/Outsider 12 with a caster level of 29 without any buffs.

Edit: How about an Ardent with recharge trickery? Ardent 1/Outsider 76 with Practiced manifester slapped in a few times.

[Lycanthromancer]

Edit: How about an Ardent with recharge trickery? Ardent 1/Outsider 76 with Practiced manifester slapped in a few times.

You have to choose a new class each time you take Practiced Manifester.

[Tshern]

Edit: How about an Ardent with recharge trickery? Ardent 1/Outsider 76 with Practiced manifester slapped in a few times.

You have to choose a new class each time you take Practiced Manifester.

Bummer.

[Endarire]

Factotum and martial adepts benefit most.  Practiced Spellcaster/Manifester helps.

Psion5/Dragon4/ConstructorX.

Also, abilities (SLAs and PLAs especially) that scale based on HD.

[Lycanthromancer]

This will certainly help squishiness at level 1, fo sho.

Also, dragons are teh hax, since they get age categories stacked on.

[phaedrusxy]

Outsider 2 (8 HD)/Warblade 1 gets Iron Heart Surge at "level" 3... and has 9 hit dice... (so way more hit points than a warblade 3, BAB +9, 2 more feats just from hit dice, more skill points and higher skill point caps). Yeah, this seems like a bad idea...

Likewise, Outsider 1 (4 HD)/Ardent 2 has a ML of 6 and 3rd level powers at "level 3".

At most, they should get a 2 for 1 deal, and even then it's still likely going to be great for some characters.

[Seerow]

Agreeing with most that any method to get this many HD is pretty easy to break. Personally I'd never allow more than 1 HD per character level.

Ideally this same rule would apply to monsters (1 HD per CR), but a lot of the monster rules require monsters with weaker HD types to get more HD per CR to keep up.

[weenog]

So by 6th level I can have Shock Trooper and base attack +20 to play with?  Sounds fun.

[Halinn]

There's no reason to ever play a mundane, if you can get 4 BAB, 4/3rds of a feat, 4 HD and a stat increase every level.

[RobbyPants]

Outsider 2 (8 HD)/Warblade 1 gets Iron Heart Surge at "level" 3... and has 9 hit dice... (so way more hit points than a warblade 3, BAB +9, 2 more feats just from hit dice, more skill points and higher skill point caps). Yeah, this seems like a bad idea...

Likewise, Outsider 1 (4 HD)/Ardent 2 has a ML of 6 and 3rd level powers at "level 3".

At most, they should get a 2 for 1 deal, and even then it's still likely going to be great for some characters.

Yeah, given that IL goes up 1 for every 2 HD, that means that every "level" of 4 HD = 2 IL. Just dip your favorite martial adept class periodically. You could have 9th level maneuvers as level 9 (32 HD + 1 MA level).

There's no reason to ever play a mundane, if you can get 4 BAB, 4/3rds of a feat, 4 HD and a stat increase every level.

Yeah, even with most class features, they just don't compare. Especially the fighter, since he's just a bunch of feats. Each level, you get the following:

Fighter:
d10 hp
+1 BAB
+1/2 Fort
+1/3 Ref
+1/3 Will
1/2 Fighter Bonus feat
1/3 Feat

Dragon:
4d12 hp
+4 BAB
+2 Fort
+2 Ref
+2 Will
1 1/3 Feats

(alternately, be an outsider, lose some HP and gain some proficiencies)

Just based on HD alone, you're netting more feats than the fighter. Casters will still win in many cases, but these guys have way more HP and saves to deal with the spells at least.