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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7676184" data-attributes="member: 37579">It makes sense to give the DM veto power over conjuring animals. There's the "story" reasons. The spellcaster is calling fey spirits to take a particular form, but the fey spirit arguably chooses the form they take. And there's no solid reason why a PC would know all the best available animals and have a mental menagerie to pick from. Knowledge of foreign animals might be spotty.Plus, sometimes it doesn't make sense for an animal to fit the terrain. Why would a fey spirit pretending to be a beast choose to be a tropical ape in a temperate forest. Turning monster books into a player resource is always tricky. As more monsters are introduced that are designed as monsters and not PC allies, there's a greater chance of something breaking the game. And under CR-ed monsters - ones with too low AC/HP/dmg to be a threat to the PCs - are suddenly powerful allies. There are some monsters with great utility. Just being able to choose 8 pixies and, for a single 4th-level spell and gain access to all their spellcasting is pretty potent.</blockquote>