It's called bedside manners

Not everyone is a technical writer and it's nice to have it in layman's terms.

How did my answer not address this? The only difference between the bit you quoted and my answer is he used letters while I specified adjacent characters.

Genuinely curious here... trying to figure out where the disconnect is so I can try to cover it in the future.

Visual aids, I guess

Saying you must target adjacent characters is not the same as saying you must only target adjacent characters.

Referencing Energy Explosion and Pulse Wave did nothing for me, because I'm still fairly new to the HeroClix rules and those are two of the more complex abilities in my view. I even thought that Energy Explosion did target adjacent figures, but looking again I see that's not the case.

I tried to phrase my questions so they could be answered as simply as possible, and only Suttkus came close to using them, though he still went and came up with a whole new example.

So it looks like the answers are:

Only B will be a target.

Same result. Only B.

No. B has to be a target.

Yes.

All figures are subject to its effects.

You get a single free action to use as an attack against one of the figures hit. Keep in mind it's a 'normal' attack, which will require line of fire and range.

I don't see where you get this answer? He's targeting all of them the first time, why doesn't he get to target them all with the free action?

It's a free action to make an attack. This particular character can only attack a single target, so in order to attack, let's say 3 targets, he would have to use 3 free actions to make 3 attacks. But the rules state...

I'd say making 3 attacks counts as the same game effect more than twice in one turn, doesn't it?

He's only going to get a single attack action, so he'll only be able to attack as many figures as that single action allows.

Fair enough.

Indeed it does.

It's not that the answers were different, it's just the phrasing.

My father is the world's worst question answerer, so I've had a lot of practice translating fundamentally correct, but not immediately clear or not sufficiently explained answers to something other people can understand. Humor helps. Humor gives a brain a moment to process what it just read before moving on to the next concept. It keeps the reader from having to break his rhythm by stopping his reading to think about what he just read. Or that's my theory.

Just putting this out there for the sake of discussion: I used to joke a lot in my responses. Still do occasionally. However, I also got a lot of PMs from people telling me they thought I was insulting them, or being childish, or it wasn't helpful, or [insert negative comment of your choice here], and so on. So I stopped (or, at least, cut back quite a bit).

I personally love humor in explanations. I use it when I teach all the time. But when I get enough PMs from people asking me to stop, that makes me take a second look at the situation. Are they just being negative because they didn't like the ruling? Possibly. But it could also be that they genuinely don't like the humor and just want an answer, plain with no window dressing.

So it becomes a tight-rope act. I want to answer things in a manner to which is useful for the most number of readers. Any feedback to aid me in that endeavor is appreciated.

I would have never guessed that. Interesting. Maybe it's because you are the authority while I'm just a "joe", but I've never had anyone complain about my humor in a rules answer. We must do experiments to find out the reasonable limits of humor in rules answers! Everyone, you are now guinea pigs!

OK, just to be clear in the future, because something just sprung to mine, does this change Cosmic Spider-Man's ruling?
It was ruled that CSM can use RCE on each figure that was Force Blasted. Wouldn't Elite's power and grenade be the same thing?

I think that the CSM/Whirlwind ruling was made with the previous rules where free actions weren't limited to being once per turn. With the new rules CSM can't target all the characters he Force Blasts with Whirlwind.

From the other two recent CSM threads:

i was part of that recent CSM thread and i now have another question regarding the whole "can't be given the same free action more than once a turn" ruling. what if i used BCF with my fig and then my mind controller used compel on that same fig, would i then not be allowed to BCF again?

maybe this is a bad example, but basically, if i compel one of my figs can i or can i not use the same power they may have just used prior to me compelling them?

i could see it being a NO if said power was outwit or perplex, but what about non-free actions?

it's blowing my mind, because ANY action you give to the MC'd fig is considered a free action....
does this question even remotely make sense? sorry if it doesn't

MC is counted as it's own sort of beast.

Basically, you treat that MC as its own, well, basically its own game.

Anything that can be done once per _____ can be done each MC.