So I decided to try to homebrew one or two (if you have any homebrewed feats, list them here as well. I would greatly appreciate it...
). Here is my current idea for a feat:Doppelganger Adaptability
Prerequisite: Doppelganger, Change Shape racial power
Benefit: You gain access to the Doppelganger Adaptability power.
Doppelganger Adaptability (Feat Power)
Daily
Action: Varies Range: Self
Effect: You can another race’s at-will or encounter ability. Use this ability only if your current shape is that race.
Special: You must take the Doppelganger Adaptability feat to use this power.
Is the ability too powerful or not powerful enough (basically you can as a daily power use another race's at-will or encounter power).
Doppelganger Adaptability (Feat Power)
Daily
Action: Varies Range: Self
Effect: You can another race’s at-will or encounter ability. Use this ability only if your current shape is that race.
Special: You must take the Doppelganger Adaptability feat to use this power.
Is the ability too powerful or not powerful enough (basically you can as a daily power use another race's at-will or encounter power).
That seems way too good. It's pretty good for the PC races we have now, but you have to keep in mind that every time they release a PHB or MM with PC races in it, your Doppelganger gains a whole host of new abilities.
I would suggest that the feat might grant access to one race's encounter power as a Daily Power (i.e. Fey Step as a Daily).
Detect Thoughts: The doppelganger gets a +2 feat bonus on insight checks, and can detect surface thoughts within 10 squares.
As written I could start using the Life Siphon ability of the Voidsoul Specter (a level 23 monster) at level 1.
It's opening up the can of worms that was 3.X's Polymorph debacle again. Yes, it's too powerful. It essentially gives you access to the encounter abilities of every Medium humanoid that exists, or ever will exist. Even as a Daily that's too powerful, especially for the measly cost of a single Feat.
As written I could start using the Life Siphon ability of the Voidsoul Specter (a level 23 monster) at level 1.
Yes, though I wasn't thinking of this used with a monster's ability. I was just thinking of a concept as I was taking a shower (note I am not trying to break the system with some uber awesome ability...I just think being adaptable to more than just looks is interesting). Now here is what I was thinking.
"Persona specialization:
requirements: Doppelganger, Change Shape, Wis 13
Benefits: By sitting down for one hour and watching another race's social interaction you can and making a DC 15 Insight check (DM is free to modify this DC because of various circumstances; language barriers, culture and race is very exotic, ect.) you gain that race as your persona. You can only have one race as a persona, though by watching another race for an hour and making another Insight check you can change your persona race.
You gain +2 on Bluff checks while pretending to be that race.
Then another feat would be similar to the first I suggested, which allows you to use a racial encounter or at-will ability of your persona race as a daily.
- it gives the PC an additional Power in exchange for a Feat. This shouldn't happen (note that the Channel Divinity Feats only give you a new use for an ability, not an entirely new one).
- it gives PCs access to monster powers. This is what broke 3.X polymorph. It'd be even worse in 4e, where monsters and PCs are designed according to entirely different balance philosophies.
Good point 10 Foot Pole, though I think just one other race is a bit restrictive (could just be because I like the concept of doppelgangers being more adaptive than some races). Would you think something along the lines of choosing a number of races equal to an ability modifier (say intelligence or maybe even wisdom since doppelgangers do not get a naturally high wisdom) be too powerful. (e.g. lets say a doppelganger has a wisdom of 14, he could select 2 races in which he could mimic.)
I still think that might be a little too powerful. What about taking the feat multiple times to gain new racial abilities. You get a feat every other level, and that's a very fast progression for new daily powers.
I still think that might be a little too powerful. What about taking the feat multiple times to gain new racial abilities. You get a feat every other level, and that's a very fast progression for new daily powers.
Just one race might make it a bit more fair. But I think maybe not being able to take the feat multipe times would be alright. You can retrain in 4th ed, so if you wanted another race just drop your current one for another one. And perhaps putting a clause saying the race needs to be a player character race or an approved race by the marshal would be needed.
Just one race might make it a bit more fair. But I think maybe not being able to take the feat multipe times would be alright. You can retrain in 4th ed, so if you wanted another race just drop your current one for another one. And perhaps putting a clause saying the race needs to be a player character race or an approved race by the marshal would be needed.
Yeah, I think that would be for the best.
Racial Thesis
Prerequisite: Change Shape racial power
Benefit: Choose a racial encounter power of another playable race. Due to your extensive study of this race, you gain this encounter power. You cannot take this feat more than once.
It seems to work out fairly balanced so far, though I'm a fey pact warlock who got fey step as an extra teleport, so I'm not exactly pushing the envelope, so there may be some racial power that I haven't thought of that would be overpowered for doppleganger to have for some reason...
I should probably note that, since change shape only allows you to emulate medium sized races, my racial feat shouldn't allow you to get the halfling power (or kobold, etc. from MM).