The problem is that you don't know or understand what question is being discussed. Neonchameleon made a claim about the 4e powers and deriving fluff from them which I objected to (so it has nothing to do with the general amount of kobold fluff in the MM regardless of how many people want this to be the argument.).
I expect if someone is quoting or addressing me specifically in the thread then they are choosing to addrss the issue I am specifically discussing
I've read every post in the thread. And in the post you quoted I was discussing the Shifty power.
Actually, neonchameleon was himself replying to an accusation that the 4e MM was sparse in flavor. His rebuttal was the flavor is very much present, but is supplied differently than in previous editions. Deriving flavor from monster powers, as well as Shifty specifically, was but one example of the flavor he spoke of.
Right. And I've had a series of posts (as have others) agreeing with and elaborating Neonchameleon's claim.
Also for the record there is no fluff for the shifty power in MM1... it is plain and simple mechanics.
I am looking at a 4e MM, on page 167. This page has the following introductory text for kobolds:
[Kobolds] skulk in the darkness, hiding from stronger foes and swarming to overwhelm weaker ones. Kobolds are cowardly and usually flee once bloodied. . . Kobolds like to set traps and ambushes. If they can’t get their enemies to walk into a trap, they try to sneak up as close as they can and then attack in a sudden rush.
Directly beneath this text is the first of a total of 6 statblocks for kobolds. Like each of them, this first statblock calls out a Stealth bonus in the Skills line, and has a power called Shifty:
Shifty (minor; at-will) – The kobold shifts 1 square.
Are you really telling me that (i) this power has no fluff or flavour text, no suggestion to the GM as to what it means for a kobold, or what is happening in the fiction when the power is used, and (ii) that this power doesn't realise, as a feature of actual gameplay, the kobold's fictional properties of being a skulker, a swarmer, a cowardly flee-er, an ambusher, and a sudden-rusher - in short, of being (in one of several possible sense, but certainly the sense that the context seems to me to make salient)
shifty?
For those who want flavour and action resolution mechanics to be integrated, how would integration get any tighter than in this particular case?
As I've already said upthread, if you want to attack 4e monster powers, and the difficulty of identifying what they are about or how they work in the fiction, there are plausible candidates, like the pact hag. But the shiftiness of kobolds is not an example.
(For the record, here is the flavour text to stat block comparison for a pact hag (MM3 pp 108-9):
Many come in search of the power, knowledge, and rituals the [pact] hag possesses. However, such things come at a price, which is named in the pacts the hag forges.
*Pact of Obedience (Aura 5): Any ally within the aura that misses with a melee attack can take 5 damage to gain a +2 power bonus to the attack roll.
*Compelling Staff (charm, weapon) . . . 1d6 + 5 damage, and the target makes a melee basic attack as a free action against a creature of the hag's choice.
*Pact of Choked Agression (charm, psychic) . . . The target is affected by a pact of choked aggression until the end of the encounter or until the hag or one of its allies attacks the target. While affected by the pact, the target takes 10 psychic damage the first time it hits a creature during each of its turns.
*Pact of Shared Agony (psychic) . . . Until the end of the encounter, while the target is within 10 squares of the hag, the target takes 10 psychic damage whenever the hag takes damage.
I don't think anyone would deny that those powers are a bit more opaque than a kobold's.)
