Shifty/goblin tactics/slippery etc etc

[Lauberfen]

Not sure if you've noticed already, but it seems wizards got a bit carried away and gave three of the famous monster races a racial ability based on shifting.

While it's cool to have goblins shifting around, especially as it makes missing all the more annoying, mightn't it get a bit samey when kobolds and kua-toa (I think it was) are fairly similar. I initially thought that the racial ability thing was really cool, but actually looking through the MM there are not as memorable abilities as perhaps their could be.

One of my only issues with the MM, which I've otherwise hailed as easily the best of the three books.

 

[Kordeth]

On the page they might look similar, but in play there's a pretty huge difference between "shift as a minor action," "shift when an opponent misses you," and "shift to any other square adjacent to an enemy."