Racial HD and Meditant Prestige Class Qualification

Question

If I understand it correctly, Racial HD count as character levels for how many ranks you can have in a skill. Does this mean that a psionic character with 4 racial hd could qualify for the meditant prestige classes at level 2 if they had the appropriate feats, practiced manifester (therefore counting as a 5th level manifester), and 9 ranks in concentration? Could they also use reincarnate at a later point to switch to a 0 LA race?

Meditant Requirements:

Skill: Concentration 9 ranks.

Feats: Deep Psychic Meditation (3 times), Psychic Meditation.

Psionics: Manifester level 5th.

Alignment: Any lawful.

Answer 1

Yes, a character could enter such a class at Class Level 2 (or even 0, if they wanted, and had the right race). Such a character could also use reincarnate to become a normal race with 0 LA, though they'd still be saddled with racial HD.

A character can't enter such a class at Effective Character Level 2, though, because both level adjust and racial HD count as levels against the character for that purpose. This makes this less of a useful option and more of a terrible trap, but if you already are saddled with a bunch of racial HD you can certainly use them like the levels you missed out on for them to qualify for things.

That reincarnate removes HD can be seen from its spell description:

The subject’s level (or Hit Dice) is reduced by 1. If the subject was 1st level, its new Constitution score is reduced by 2.

Since the spell says you reduce the subject's level or Hit Dice, you can reduce the subject's level, or the subject's hit dice.