Dopplegangers: common misconception?

[Egres]

Look at this picture:

It seems that Dopplegangers can, as many people think, disguise themselves changing clothes and equipment too with their Change Shape ability.

Now, read the following paragraph from the SRD:

Change Shape (Su): A creature with this special quality has the ability to assume the appearance of a specific creature or type of creature (usually a humanoid), but retains most of its own physical qualities. A creature cannot change shape to a form more than one size category smaller or larger than its original form. Changing shape results in the following changes to the creature:

*

The creature retains the type and subtype of its original form. It gains the size of its new form.
*

The creature loses the natural weapons, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its original form.
*

The creature gains the natural weapons, movement modes, and extraordinary special attacks of its new form.
*

The creature retains all other special attacks and qualities of its original form, except for breath weapons and gaze attacks.
*

The creature retains the ability scores of its original form.
*

The creature retains its hit points and saves.
*

The creature retains any spellcasting ability it had in its original form, although it must be able to speak intelligibly to cast spells with verbal components and it must have humanlike hands to cast spells with somatic components.
*

The creature is effectively camouflaged as a creature of its new form, and gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks if it uses this ability to create a disguise.


Ok, maybe I'm just blind, but I can't see anything stating that you can disguise your equipment.

Any thoughts?

 

[Aeric]

You're correct, dopplegangers as described in the 3.5 MM cannot mimic clothing or other equipment using their shape change ability. They used to be able to in previous editions, but not in 3.5. Dunno about 3.0.

 

[Targos]

3.0 dopplegangers had alter self as the spell. The 3.0 spell explicitly said it modified clothes/equipment, but the 3.5 version doesn't. That's irrelevant however since 3.5 dopplegangers don't have alter self.

Skip said here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040907a) in the second bullet that spells state what they do, not what they can't since those are potentially infinite possibilities. Its a safe bet the same can be applied here and if it doesn't say it can, then it can't. For example, it doesn't say you don't gain the feats of the form assumed, so I would assume that you don't.