I guess my main complaint about Rakshasa is that it's already been nerfed a few times. It's key features and strengths are nullified by the implementation on Arelith. People poopoo this complaint because they don't want to see OP races, yet there are other races that got a huge amount of developer attention and have in fact been made extremely powerful by comparison. The key example here being vampire. In dnd? Rakshasa are way more powerful than vampires - it's an entirely different category of monster.
Everything the Rakshasa has barring the racial polymorph can be done by other options and in most cases better.
Rakshasa on Arelith:
+2 Dex
+2 Cha
SR 26 (Achievable with classes, some classes go beyond this cap, Drow have this SR without award, nerfed from previous 32 SR - other old characters still have 32 SR gift although they're rarer these days)
5/+2 DR (absolutely meaningless after level 3 in most cases)
+8 Bluff
Rakshasa in Dnd:
+2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +6 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +6 Charisma.
Darkvision
A rakshasa has a +4 racial bonus on Bluff and Disguise checks, and it can gain further bonuses by using change shape (+10 on Disguise checks) and detect thoughts (+4 on Bluff and Disguise checks).
Racial Feats: A rakshasa’s outsider levels give it three feats.
+9 natural armor bonus.
Detect Thoughts (Su): The save DC is 12 + the character’s Cha modifier.
Spells: A rakshasa character casts spells as a 7th-level sorcerer. If the character takes additional levels of sorcerer, these levels stack with the rakshasa’s base spellcasting ability for spells known, spells per day, and other effects dependent on caster level. A rakshasa character likewise uses the sum of its racial spellcasting levels and class levels to determine the abilities of its familiar.
Special Qualities (see above): Change shape, damage reduction 15/good and piercing, spell resistance equal to 27 + class levels.
+7 ECL
Obviously the dnd Rakshasa is too powerful for a character on Arelith, however the way it has been implemented could be reviewed. It was done a long time ago, has been slightly tweaked over time, and falls short of other lesser awards. e.g. Yuan-ti are effectively better at shapeshifting to hide their identity with similar bonuses +INT on top.
Anything with polymorph/shapeshift/wildshape has an unbeatable disguise method, because even if you beat the Bluff/Perform roll, you get "This is a shapechanged creature." not "This is actually John Adventurer." A rakshasa who is known as John Adventurer the Halfling, who is shapeshifted as an elf and disguised as "Sylvan Moonbowington" will have their disguise broken and they get named "You recognise this as John Adventurer." This is absolutely ridiculous! How could anyone possibly know in this most extreme circumstance that the elf they're seeing is actually the halfling they know? Let alone if they don't know the character. There should at the very least be some other message that does not disclose the true name of the character - it IS used to metagame, people DO metagame all of the time, it's almost impossible to protect against and once it's out, it's out, because metagaming enforcement is so lax. Maybe someone gets punished when some massive breach happens? But the special character, the player who spent years trying to get a Major award, put in time and effort to building identities, put in a long request that had to be verified and so on... they get screwed.
At the very least, Rakshasa SHOULD be good at the core thing they're supposed to do.
