Flurry of Blows powers are features, not attack powers, with a range of Melee 1 or 2. Although it's clear melee attacks can target squares rather than creatures, I've been ruling that Flurry doesn't have that option and so a monk cannot use Flurry without a valid target in range.
This seemed very straightforward until a monk in my group took the Skipping Stone Flurry
feat, which has the following benefit:
When you use your Flurry of Blows power and you have a sling in hand, you can replace one normal target of that power with one creature within 10 squares of you. This does not provoke opportunity attacks.
To my reading, this feat (nor any of the other similar feats including Starblade Flurry
and Pointed Step Style
) does not change the range requirement to activate Flurry of Blows. That is, if you have no creatures adjacent to you and you hit with a ranged attack, your Flurry has no valid targets and thus cannot be triggered, even if you could then use Flurry to damage a ranged enemy.
Am I entirely misunderstanding Flurry of Blows or the non-attack-power targeting rules? Am I interpreting the relevant feats correctly? Should I break this into multiple questions? Can a monk with Skipping Stone Flurry, Starblade Flurry, or Pointed Step Style use Flurry of Blows if the only potential targets are outside the range of a non-feat-enhanced Flurry power?