So a friend of mine and I are co-DMing a campaign and I want to recreate a character from a 4e Campaign my 4E loving friend dragged me into. Primary reason is I had a lot of fun with the character's concept. Essentially, he was a Changeling Spellsinger, so wizard with sword and could change his appearance. The class thing I can work out all on my own, no big deal, but I can't seem to find a race aside from Kitsune (Which isn't what I'm looking for) in the core rulebook and advanced race guide. All I care for from the race is the ability to take the Appearence of other races, not the stats or anything. A race that would make charades fun, basically.
Gnome magic might give you access to disguise SLAs. Caps of Disguise and Quickchange Cloaks help.
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I strongly recommend checking out the Skindancer race from Wayfinder #7(freely available here). If you're playing in Golarion, it fits right in. If you're looking for a PC-balanced race with shapeshifting, it's a perfect match.
Note, this isn't the skinwalker race, which has ties with lycanthropes. They're a completely unrelated race with inborn shapeshifting abilities which allow them to take on the appearance of other humanoid races.
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There's also an excellent fan-made Eberron conversion here, including the Changeling.
https://sites.google.com/site/eberronpathfinder/conversion-info
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You can probably refluff the skinwalker.
Don't rule out kitsune totally. They can get Realistic Likeness, which allows them to shapeshift into any human. A lenient GM could allow it to work for other humanoid races as well.
The Eberron Pathfinder conversion, as suggested by Zhayne, looks good and has several versions of the Changeling. I made my own conversion for a friend when we switched from 4th Edition.
Changeling Racial Traits
+2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution: Changelings are crafty and charming, but physically frail.
Medium: Changelings are medium-sized creatures and have no penalties or bonuses due to their size.
Shapeshifter: Changelings are humanoids with the shapeshifter subtype.
Normal Speed: Changelings have a base speed of 30 feet.
Change Shape (Su): Changelings can assume the appearance of a Small or Medium humanoid as the alter self spell, save that it does not adjust their ability scores.
Gift of the Tongues: Changelings gain a +1 racial bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks, and they learn one additional language every time they put a rank in the Linguistics skill.
Languages: Changelings begin play speaking Common. Changelings with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages such as Druidic).
Well, if we look at the Advanced Race Guide, this is the cost of being able to assume the form of whatever you'd like:
Change Shape, Greater (6 RP)Prerequisites: Aberration, dragon, fey, humanoid, or monstrous humanoid type.
Benefit: Members of this race gain the following supernatural ability: a member of this race can assume the appearance of a Small or Medium humanoid as the alter self spell, save that it does not adjust its ability scores.
Now, if we look at the Changeling Race, the Hag traits that would need to be dropped (Heritage and Claws) come out to about 4 rp in cost. If you also dropped natural armor, you could (theoretically) make a Changeling who was the child of a doppleganger instead of a hag. Again, all subject to your GM's approval in this case.
Considering you're losing just about every racial trait the Changelinging has (except Darkvision) for the ability to use Alter Self at will, I'd probably allow it, personally. Its not much more powerful than what you could get as a kitsune who takes the realistic likeness feat, and they still have excellent Favored Class Options and other racial traits to fall back on.
Edit: My suggestion is almost identical to Cyrad's proposal. The only difference is that I didn't change the Changeling's ability score modifiers.
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...Considering you're losing just about every racial trait the Changelinging has (except Darkvision) for the ability to use Alter Self at will, I'd probably allow it, personally. Its not much more powerful than what you could get as a kitsune who takes the realistic likeness feat, and they still have excellent Favored Class Options and other racial traits to fall back on.
Edit: My suggestion is almost identical to Cyrad's proposal. The only difference is that I didn't change the Changeling's ability score modifiers.
After the ARG came out, I went back and calculated the skindancer's skindance ability at 4 RP. I've since tweaked skindance even further to this:
Skindance (su): At will, skindancers can assume the appearance of a either a specific or representative example of a Medium humanoid as per alter self, but do not gain any additional senses, movement abilities, natural armor, or bonuses to attributes. If an assumed form possesses natural attacks, the skindancer may only make them using the skindancer's BAB and iterative attack progression. This ability does not alter gear. The uncomfortable transformation to an assumed form (or reversion to its original form) takes 5 rounds to complete, during which the skindancer is considered staggered. A skindancer remains in an assumed form even while unconscious, but reverts to its natural form 6d4+12 hours after death.
I think the significant limitations in it are worth the 2 RP decrease over (Greater) Change Shape from the ARG. I also prefer the more old school Rick Baker sfx/Werewolf in London style transformation over a standard action "morph" transformation that includes clothes and gear, but that's just me.
The OP mentioned that he was porting over a changeling from Eberron, so I posted a way that he could use the Pathfinder Changeling race to the same effect.
The OP mentioned that he was porting over a changeling from Eberron, so I posted a way that he could use the Pathfinder Changeling race to the same effect.
Yeah, that was my intent too. If the OP uses the 4 RP skindance instead of the 6 RP (greater) change shape, that leaves a few extra RPs to put toward a +1 or +2 racial bonus to Bluff and/or Sense Motive (I don't remember the 3.5e Eberron's racial bonuses, and my hardcover is in storage). Sorry for any confusion.