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Message: <blockquote data-quote="see" data-source="post: 7154333" data-attributes="member: 10531">Groveling, cowering, and begging outside of combat (that is, in order to convince people not to kill them) is perfectly in-character for kobolds facing more powerful beings in general, though it doesn't make particular sense for PCs.Groveling, cowering, and begging in the middle of combat (that is, while someone who has already decided to kill them is trying to squash them, in place of trying to dodge or the like) is just stupid for any fictional character that's supposed to have any agency whatsoever.  You want NPCs to break down in dread, fine, but PCs should not be given an incentive to do it unless you're playing Bystanders & Extras, or Victims: The Doomed.And then, as the reward for playing your character as an idiot, all your allies get advantage on their attacks.  The utterly unfazable, passionless, iron golem?  That alien monster from the Far Realm?  Is so distracted by your display that he leaves himself vulnerable to everyone else.Finally, the idea that it's "cower[ing] pathetically" is utterly inconsistent with requiring a rest to recharge.  You can't beg for your life each combat because, why, exactly?  I mean, "doesn't work more than once a combat" would be one thing, but I go four rooms down in the dungeon and I can't repeat why?So, yeah, what I'm objecting to is the flavor, because the flavor is pure screwball comedy, with no logic, and a metagamy restriction.  Utterly clashing in tone with the Monster Lore section.  Everyone who was involved in writing or approving that Kobold Traits block should be embarrassed that it saw print.And that's particularly true because it can be refluffed so easily to be tonally consistent and mostly logical.  Call it "Cunning Trick", fluff it as involving a trap/device/invention you improvised in downtime to render the foe vulnerable, and you're actually playing to the presentation of kobolds given in the same book.</blockquote>

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