Is Racial Emulation Dysfunctional?

[Doctor Despair]

Racial Emulation is a broadly worded feat lets a Changeling count as any humanoid race for more or less amy purpose:


You can emulate a humanoid more closely with your minor change shape ability.

Prerequisite
Changeling,

Benefit
When you use your minor change shape ability to assume the form of a humanoid creature, you can also emulate any of that humanoid's subtypes. Though you do not gain any of the humanoid's traits, you are considered to be a member of that race for all other purposes (allowing you to use magic items or spells keyed to race, for example). You can also ignore the normal penalty on Disguise checks when disguising yourself as a different race (see the Disguise skill description, page 72 of the Player's Handbook). You can only emulate one race at a time, and you always retain the shapechanger subtype

This is commonly used as a neat trick to take levels of various different races' substitution levels (or recently with the Metamorphic Transfer/Assume Supernatural Ability feats to cheat out high-HD abilities at level 1), but it just occurred to me... Does the feat even work at all?

When you use it to emulate another race, you are considered to be a member of that race for all purposes apart from getting their traits... This should mean you are no longer considered a Changeling. As such, you should no longer qualify for Racial Emulation.

What do you think? Is this feat dysfunctional, or am I misreading it this morning?

[hamishspence]

You are emulating the other race. This does not mean you cease to be your own race as well. This is why you retain the shapechanger subtype.

So

Presumably "counts as the other race" applies for disadvantageous purposes as well. If you are emulating an dwarf in order to wield a Dwarven Thrower, yes, you can wield a Dwarven Thrower and use all its power as if you were a dwarf, but if someone attacks you with a Dwarf Bane weapon, you take full damage from that, too.

[Doctor Despair]

You are emulating the other race. This does not mean you cease to be your own race as well. This is why you retain the shapechanger subtype.

So

Presumably "counts as the other race" applies for disadvantageous purposes as well. If you are emulating an dwarf in order to wield a Dwarven Thrower, yes, you can wield a Dwarven Thrower and use all its power as if you were a dwarf, but if someone attacks you with a Dwarf Bane weapon, you take full damage from that, too.

That's how I've always read it, too. Certainly that makes the most sense and produces the least inconsistency. It's such a broadly worded feat that it invites a lot of weird edge cases though.

Let me pick your brain for a moment here, then, since we're on the topic of disadvantageous emulation. A Necropolitan changeling emulates a human. Someone else casts Deathwatch. Do they register as fighting off death, undead, or both? The spell seems worded such that it should only be one, as it uses an exclusive "or" when listing conditions that can register.

[hamishspence]

You're emulating "a human" not "the living" Effectively, you're adding "human" - but you're not removing "undead".

So I'd rule that you still "ping as undead" to the Deathwatch spell.

If you want to "ping as Living" you'd need to do something else.