Since alternate form doesn't change your type and subtype, it's simplest to rule that you retain any of your racial traits that aren't otherwise barred by the alternate form effect. That means that you'd keep any racial skill bonuses, racial bonus feats, and the like, but you wouldn't gain those of the new form. Even though your body appears similar to that of a normal creature of the new form, you don't have its lifetime of experience in the body, and therefore don't necessarily share its natural aptitudes.
So, for example, a weretiger isn't any good at hiding in tall grass. I have no idea how this interacts with characters explicitly gaining feats when they represent 'special attacks.'
I wish they'd just forget about this crap, and just tell everyone to use the new poly rules in the PHB2.
Next errata should just say "Alter self, polymorph, poly any object and shapechange don't exist anymore" and "all druids are now required to take the shapeshift variant in PHB2."
that'd solve most of the problems with all this polymorph crap.
It took me like one game of actually using this spell in play to see that it was totally unsalvageable. I can't believe they're still wasting thier time on that crap.
Alternate Form is the real problem. It has all the complexity and problems of the old Polymorph, which is the worse of both worlds.
The new Polymorph, however, is far more balanced. All the really dumb things that people used to do are now gone.
They could balance it completely if they just gave it a mechanic like "every form has an associated version of this spell, and is a seperate spell for all purposes" and then give the Polymorph version a clause like "this spell grants 5 temporary HPs per HD of the monster you become."
Alter Self needs to just be a jumped up Disquise Self, and not be even vaguely related to. Shapechange can be unchanged from the new way it works.
