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<blockquote data-quote="Justice and Rule" data-source="post: 9024059" data-attributes="member: 6778210">Exactly. Monsters are not balanced within each CR so that they are all &quot;equally-viable&quot;: that's not a concern for a GM, who just wants something reasonably close to the right amount of challenge. Your monster choice doesn't need to be &quot;optimized&quot; so that you get the best monster from every CR. However, as a PC who is getting to choose, that's exactly what you'll do: gravitate to the ones that get the most bang for the buck.With lenses, you can flavor them via some powers but always have something that is level-appropriate: your cat form will be as powerful as you and you can flavor that however you want. As you level up, you can give more options so that you can take on special modifiers (Maybe you decide you want to be a &quot;stealthy&quot; panther versus a &quot;savage&quot; tiger, so you can pick a set of modifiers that gives you more stealth and a sneak attack bonus versus having improved attacks) over time. You could even do easier restrictions on what you can and can't be: you want to do a flying creature? Well, now you can be, but your stats will be for you at a level lower than you normally would count as. All sorts of design space here to use rather than trying to balance existing monsters and stuff them into a box they weren't really designed to fit in.Edit: I'd also like to say that this method would also allow you to do certain &quot;monstrosities&quot; that resemble beasts but are not. If you are just attaching stats to a block, you could more easily do, say, a Winter Wolf or an Owl Bear without having to get ultra-specific as to what monstrosity you can chose or that you'll be too open in what Druids can transform into.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Justice and Rule, post: 9024059, member: 6778210"] Exactly. Monsters are not balanced within each CR so that they are all "equally-viable": that's not a concern for a GM, who just wants something reasonably close to the right amount of challenge. Your monster choice doesn't need to be "optimized" so that you get the best monster from every CR. However, as a PC who is getting to choose, that's exactly what you'll do: gravitate to the ones that get the most bang for the buck. With lenses, you can flavor them via some powers but always have something that is level-appropriate: your cat form will be as powerful as you and you can flavor that however you want. As you level up, you can give more options so that you can take on special modifiers (Maybe you decide you want to be a "stealthy" panther versus a "savage" tiger, so you can pick a set of modifiers that gives you more stealth and a sneak attack bonus versus having improved attacks) over time. You could even do easier restrictions on what you can and can't be: you want to do a flying creature? Well, now you can be, but your stats will be for you at a level lower than you normally would count as. All sorts of design space here to use rather than trying to balance existing monsters and stuff them into a box they weren't really designed to fit in. Edit: I'd also like to say that this method would also allow you to do certain "monstrosities" that resemble beasts but are not. If you are just attaching stats to a block, you could more easily do, say, a Winter Wolf or an Owl Bear without having to get ultra-specific as to what monstrosity you can chose or that you'll be too open in what Druids can transform into. [/QUOTE]

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