Half-Doppelganger change

[Shnigda]

Hey guys, I'm starting a new game at level 3 and one of my players wants to have the Half-Doppelganger (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/halfdoppel.shtml) template but only wants it at LA+1 (maybe a quarter-Doppelganger).
I am open to this, but feel that some things would need to be removed from the template to change it from +2.
What would you suggest to make this viable?

[Zaq]

Hmm. I agree that the template doesn't seem to be crazy powerful. The NA and the WIS boost are just numbers, and it wouldn't be hard to keep them or remove them depending on what other changes you think are necessary. Empathy (I assume that's as the psionic power?) is useful, but it's not gamebreaking by any stretch. Alter Self is powerful, but it's less powerful when you're required to start with the Humanoid type (since half-doppelganger can only be applied to a Humanoid, so no shenanigans like when you use Alter Self on a neraph or a dragonwrought kobold or an elan) and when you've got a fixed set of forms to change into. That said, it's easily the most powerful thing they get. The real question is how the player intends to use it, because to be honest, as written, it doesn't give much of a "doppelganger" feel to be limited to a few specific forms.

Basically, if the player just picks "normal" races as their Alter Self forms, this template isn't very powerful at all. (The player may even be better off with a changeling than with a half-doppelganger.) In a case like that, you probably don't need to give it much LA at all, especially if you lop off the WIS bonus and the NA bonus. (You might want to declare it a race instead of a template so that you're not getting all the benefits of being, say, a human along with all the benefits of being a half-doppelganger, but that's still not bad.) If the player picks optimized Alter Self forms and has access to really powerful movement modes and/or raw numbers (something with an especially high move speed, something with unusually high NA, etc.; it's been a while since I looked at Alter Self optimization, so I forget the specifics), then this is a powerful template, and it's probably worth at least 1 or 2 LA, with the exact balance point depending on the rest of the party and on what the GM is comfortable with.

I don't think it's worth 3 LA, though. So even if you don't change any of the abilities, I'd at least drop it down to 2 LA at the most. And since you're starting at level 3, you might want to say that they can't Alter Self into anything with more HD than they actually have.

[SimonMoon6]

I'd say, take away the feat and the immunities and it should be fine as LA +1. Also, limit the Alter Self forms so no abusive extra abilities (like that winged elf race giving flight) would be allowed.

[Shnigda]

What LA would you give it if I changed the Alternate Forms ability to the Changeling's Minor Shapechange ability (then maybe took away the immunities and/or Empathy)?

[Zaq]

What LA would you give it if I changed the Alternate Forms ability to the Changeling's Minor Shapechange ability (then maybe took away the immunities and/or Empathy)?

At that point I'd just play a changeling. The NA and WIS bonus and set-in-stone bonus feat aren't sufficiently better than a changeling to be worth LA.

You MIGHT justify LA +1 if you stuck it on top of an already powerful LA 0 race, but I'd still rather just be a changeling.