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My answer to this question would be improved if I knew of a Humanoid-type creature with a large number of racial hit dice. Such creatures are rather rare—Humanoids usually have just one racial hit die (which is replaced by class levels), and most “humanoid-shaped” creatures with more racial hit dice are Monstrous Humanoids instead.

Still, I’m pretty sure that some Humanoid-type creatures with more than one racial hit die exist. So what are they? Which has the most?

Any Wizards of the Coast-published D&D 3.5e materials, as well as any 3.5e issues of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, are valid. Templates don’t count. The creatures must be playable, i.e. have a listed, numerical level adjustment, rather than LA – or no listed LA at all.

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From personal experience I can tell you that gnolls have two racial HD of humanoid (they come up pretty often in early D&D--> 3.5 conversion attempts I've run).

The highest HD base untemplated humanoid race and the highest HD "playable" untemplated humanoid happen to be the same: The Belgoi in Dungeon #111 has 4 racial HD, the highest of any humanoid, and LA:+4. They are definitely not worth the LA or, honestly, even LA:+0. I have to put the qualifiers on that because werewolves.

Lizardfolk, Locathah, and Troglodyte (as well as the aforementioned gnolls) have 2 racial HD and are from the Monster Manual.

Bugbear are from the monster manual and have 3 racial HD. A Bugbear werewolf would have 3 racial HD of humanoid and 2 racial HD of animal and could qualify for Ur-priest before taking their first level in terms of skill-cap space.

Quinametin are a LA:+2 2 HD race found in Dragon #317.

Dark Stalkers and Selkies are 3 HD humanoids from the Fiend Folio. The Dark Stalker has a whopping +5 LA, Selkies have a +1. That book also has the 2 HD +4 LA Dark Creeper.

The Varag is a 3HD +2 LA humanoid found in MMIV. It also has a racial class progression version as an option.

The Crucians are a race of 3 HD LA +2 humanoids from Sandstorm.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Nice! Four gets us pretty close to the five needed for ur-priest—some shenanigans with inspire greatness could make up for that. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Dec 4, 2019 at 3:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ You could also contract lycanthropy (either normally with a high-HD animal or while in Belgoi form with any 1HD or more animal, like e.g. a wolf). \$\endgroup\$
    – Please stop being evil
    Dec 4, 2019 at 3:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ Sure, but lycanthropes explicitly need to still have one class level or more-than-one racial hit dice from their original race before the template can be applied, so gnolls or belgoi or similar are needed to get started. \$\endgroup\$
    – KRyan
    Dec 4, 2019 at 3:50

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