Comparing the bears vs pc-levels

[Crimlock NL]

Hi all,

I'm trying to create a race that has the ability to change into a bear at will. To balance things i'm looking into the different bears in the beastiary (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/bear):
Bear, Black
Bear, Brown (Grizzly)
Bear, Dire
Bear, Giant Advanced (Dire)
Bear, Polar

I was wondering if anybody can tell me the following: If the bear was a PC, what level would the bear be at :-) The black bear is weaker than the grizzly... but can that differance be expressed in player level?

Hope anybody can help :-)

[wraithstrike]

The way polymorph(changing shape) works in Pathfinder is that you do not get the creature's base stats. You get an adjustment to your own stats so all bears that are large would be the same for the person changing into one.

At low levels the boost in strength and constitution might be pretty good, but at higher levels it won't be as great.

The bear form is also not that great, and in bear form the character will need to have wild armor to keep the armor bonus while in animal form.

The problem here is not so much this race always being too strong, but keeping the bear form strong enough with a significant investment in resources.

This is also more of a house rule or advice type question.

If you want to use the actual bear stats then the PC level should be the CR of the "monster", but this character will not always be in bear form.

Even so bears are not meant to be characters.

[Trekkie90909]

Wraithstrike is correct, and I would generally discourage this race as it mildly detracts from one of the Druid class's strengths (backhand suggestion - you could use wildshape as a guideline).

If you want existing morph and eat them races, I recommend the Skinwalker.

Now if you simply want a tiered list your race can choose from at x level... A fully geared PC is supposed to be equivalent to a monster of a given CR. An under geared PC is supposed to be equivalent to a monster of a given CR-1. Give your race the ability to turn into a bear of lvl-1==CR-1 and you should be golden in theory. In practice CR is pretty much a load of hogwash. So /shrug.

[Qaianna]

As a Tekken junkie, I want to play a bear monk.

Seriously, I'm mentally comparing this to the other 'normal' PC shapeshifting race I remember, kitsune. Who become one specific human, so they essentially keep the same CR at all times. The Pathfinder online SRD says this about what they do:

Quote:

Change Shape (Su) A kitsune can assume the appearance of a specific single human form of the same sex. The kitsune always takes this specific form when she uses this ability. A kitsune in human form cannot use her bite attack, but gains a +10 racial bonus on Disguise checks made to appear human. Changing shape is a standard action. This ability otherwise functions as alter self, except that the kitsune does not adjust her ability scores.

While there's the whole kitsune theme going on, this seems to be what at least one set of devs thought of as far as actual shapechanging.