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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.

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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.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Doesn't reincarnate remove one hit dice when its used? Could they not just use reincarnate 4 times? \$\endgroup\$ – Cellheim Aug 21 '17 at 6:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Cellheim Yes, but I'm not sure what the advantage would be. You don't get anything back in exchange for the level you lost-- using retraining rules would be a better choice, I think. \$\endgroup\$ – Please stop being evil Aug 21 '17 at 6:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ The end goal would be to enter the prestige class sooner than normally possible and then to reincarnate away the racial hd so you can then level up normally without the racial hd dragging you down. \$\endgroup\$ – Cellheim Aug 21 '17 at 6:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Cellheim You would enter the class at the same minimum ECL, then voluntarily lose a bunch of HD/levels, then gain them back. You could do the same thing at the same level by qualifying normally and reincarnating repeatedly to lose the levels in the base class you used as a prerequisite. There is no advantage to using HD for this unless you somehow aren't losing levels for those HD. \$\endgroup\$ – Please stop being evil Aug 21 '17 at 6:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ You can choose the order you lose your class levels in? If I was psion5/meditant1 I could lose the psion levels first and become a psion1/meditant1? Could I lose the last level in psion while still having access to my psion powers and power points from the "Powers Known" class feature in Meditant? \$\endgroup\$ – Cellheim Aug 21 '17 at 8:19

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