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• Medium Monstrosity
•  the appearance of other humanoids

Wizards of the Coast...

So the Read Thoughts action works like a spell, sort of. Your friendly neighbourhood Doppelganger uses this action and if its target remains within 60 feet of it, it can keep reading its thought just concentrating, no actual action is necessary, not even a bonus one.

That'd be great if it were possible to read the players' mind! :-) Still, I guess the advantage in the social skills is a great asset.

I quite like that this is left blank personally, leaves alot of space for DMs to fill it in. Perhaps they're in a secret cult worshipping a faceless god, or who knows what else? Leaves it open ended which is nice 

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Ok, but what do they actually want? Just money and ease? Ok, as I write this, that sounds pretty awesome. But it seems like they could get that. And then what?

 I agree seems kind of hollow, almost like once they have that they just rest on their laurels.

 They way I have been thinking of them is that they want to be part of humanoid society, but they know that most humanoids are at least suspicious of them, if not entirely horrified.

 In my mind they would be the perfect spy for an enemy faction, business interest or the like. For instance a merchant could hire a doppelganger to infiltrate a competing venture and learn their secrets to get a leg up in future business dealings, perform extortion or run someone out of business etc. It doesn't have to end in bloody murder, but seeing as this is D&D, ofc it would. I am planning an adventure right now where a wealthy landowner dies and his seven sons are invited to the family estate to divy up the inheritance. As the sons end up dead one after the other the party is hired by the surviving sons to discover who/what is the killer. As for the Doppelgangers' personal motivation? My money would be on them getting their kicks out of sowing chaos, fear and deception.

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Thinking of running a butchered version of LMoP, since just finished DoIP. Might have one of these replace my DMPC for a bit, since they’re everywhere in LMoP for some reason, and make that a fun little side quest. 

I'm wondering if you could convince your doppelganger to work with you.  Just like "hey, you can pretty much become a copy of me, two of us together could be better then one

To those who don't understand Doppelgangers:

They're effectively just psychopaths, but with superpowers. They just want a place where they can survive as easily as possible, and once they have it, that's it. However, the majority of Doppelgangers achieve this by selling their services as a spy or assassin (which ingratiates them to a governing body, usually gifting them a Witness Protection-esque position) or killing and impersonating important people. This is different from the standard Quest setup, as Doppels are usually discovered and immediately taken down rather than actively hunted for a reward. 

Additionally, notice that the Slam is considered a Dex weapon and that they have a Dexterity of 18, which is so high as to be considered mastery for a human. I interpret this as incorporating their Shifting into their movement, wielding their anatomy like a weapon that flows as water. This is different than Changelings, who seem to have far lower affinity for their Shapechanging abilities.

My Dm turned me into one of these lmao

They are neutral. Maybe they just want to live out their days in peace because in the description it says not only that they use their shapeshifting abilities to lure people to their doom, but also to throw off pursuit. Maybe paranoid hunters or citizens hunt these creatures or kill them simply due to their monstrous nature.

I like to flavor their goal as being to replace the person they morph into and take their place

:3

Ok but why does it kinda look like the Stranger Things Vecna tho

really, what doesn't have sense is the name of the traait

This was fun to throw at my lvl 3 party. I had it take the form of a crying little elf girl they met in the woods that lured them to an abandoned house where she tried to kill them as a revenge motive against adventurers. My players had a blast.

They are neutral but the lore text implies they only seem to do evil acts. So, what exactly are they about? Are there some Doppelgangers that might try to just get by like changelings or do they all automatically get involved in the conspiracy stuff? 

I know that you'll probably never see this, but I believe that rules as written does not grant advantage to players who surprise/ ambush an enemy. If a creature has the surprised "condition" then they may not take actions, bonus actions, or reactions until the next round of initiative. All creatures roll initiative, regardless of surprise/ambush, then all creatures that are "surprised," essentially lose their turn. 

I believe rogue has advantage on any attack where a creature is stunned or surprised as a class feat. 

yeah I am going to dm a campaign with a doppelganger who is stealing magic from dragonborns (and the party has to rescue their team member before he is completely drained) the doppelganger is chaotic evil is and, in the realm, dragonborn magic is really powerful is this a good idea? oh, and also the main mount is giant bunny rabbits... because they are adorable right(if you say no I will find you rip your guts out tear your arms and legs off and finally eat your brain and heart)