Happybjorn,

1) It may happen during the attack but the question is, is it taking damage from an attack? That's the wording from the Mystic's ability and implies (to me) that you have to be taking damage from being attacked, not take damage from missing an attack. I think that's supported by the notion that the "attacker" takes damage through "retaliation".

Super senses has nothing to do with this. It has it's own rules (and in fact, you could not use super senses to avoid critical miss damage so I'm not sure why you're using it here). Actually, I don't really see the logic in the rest of your argument or how it applies either.

It boils down to what the interpretation of "takes damage from an attack". To me, critical miss is taking damage from messing up, not from an attack. To you, I'm guessing, the mystic ability means taking damage during an attack action.

I'm also thinking that we'll be needing some sort of official wording on this one too.

I've always considered critical misses as over-exertion or backfire damage, something similiar to pushing. LIke throwing your shoulder out of socket while trying to hit sombody. Obviously happens during the attack but you are not being attacked, or the target of an attack.

From the Rules:
and the PAC says this:
The Rules say a critical miss is an automatic miss. It is NOT an attack, and it must be a successful hit to trigger the Mystic ability. A critical miss would not cause the Mystics ability to add an additional click to himself. Besides, you cannot attack yourself.

Another easy way to look at it, toughness and such reduce damage from attacks and the like, yet they don't do diddly when you crit miss. Look at this the same way.

As I stated before I can see why you think it would work that way, but I do believe its been ruled that damage from a critical miss is not damage from an attack. (Funky Jett laid out the logic perfectly). There is no damage from an attack that misses, a critical miss is a miss.

What I think is questionable is whether or not masterminding the damage to a mystic triggers the damage.

Super Senses can't work against Masterminded damage, as it is not considered damage from an attack. By precedent, the Mystics ability would not work either.

Damage from a critical miss is not an attack.

You did not roll to hit yourself, in fact, as the name implies, it is a miss.

Think of a critical miss as you straining youself, not as you punching yourself in the crotch and saying Homer Simpson like, "stupid powers, work right"

The mystics TA does not say it requires a hit, it does not say that the character taking the damage has to be the target of the attack.

From the rule book:
"To determine the success or failure of an attack, the attacking player makes an attack roll.
Roll 2 six-sided dice and add the result to the attacker’s attack value. Compare the attack roll to the defense value of the target. If the result is equal to or higher than the defense value, the attack succeeds."

Consider these statements:
a) A hit is a successful attack.
b) A critical hit is a successful attack (so successful it deals an additional click of damage and generates knockback).
c) A miss is a failed attack.
d) A critical miss is a failed attack (so great a failure that the attacker injures themself).

Does this demonstrate clearly enough that a critical miss is an attack?

kronofear, I agree that they are similar, but there is, at least, one important difference, which is that damage from pushing doesn't happen until after the action is resolved.

Maestro, an official clarification would be great.

You are missing the whole point. You are taking damage from the miss not from the attack. In order to take damage from the attack you must be hit by the attack. Are you hit by the attack with a critical miss? No, nothing is hit by the attack. The only way I can see an attacker taking damage from the attack is if the attacker used energy explosion on an adjacent enemy.

Aside from all that, why would a character retaliate against itself? The statement itself says retaliate. And you can't really retaliate against yourself.

HeroComplex thanks for that (though I think it makes a little more sense comic book-wise for the mystic to shoot back after being held in front of a bullett then for someone to dodge while being held in front of a bullett according to the rules there is no distinction).

its been clarified, that this is not the case, but its fun to think about.-

mystic1 damages a mystic2. mystic2 "retaliates" by giving mystic1 a click. mystic1 retaliates by giving mystic2 a click
and so on
and so on

Good grief. Please don't make our FAQ any larger with nonsensical common sense items.

Critical miss damage is not reduced by Toughness, Invulnerability, or Impervious.
Critical miss damage cannot be avoided with Super Senses.
Critical miss damage cannot be diverted by Mastermind.

And no, Critical Miss damage does NOT trigger Mystics Team Ability.

Seriously, what's next? Do we need to add into the FAQ that critical miss damage doesn't give a figure a click of healing from Steal Energy? =P

Now that you brought it up, I'm sure some goon is gonna say it should work like that, and start arguin about it....

hey, when you use steal energy and critical miss do you get a click back.........wait.........I'm......I'm just a #### goon.


LUKE SMASH GOONS

Perhaps it will be easier to understand if I lay it all out real simple-like

A) a hit is a successful attack.
B) a miss is an unsuccessful attack.
C) a critical miss is a miss.
D) therefore a critical miss is an attack (b+c).
E) a character making a critical miss immediately takes one click of damage.
F) the damage taken when making a critical miss is taken from the critical miss.
G) the damage taken from a critical miss is taken from an attack (d+f).
H) the character making an attack action is the attacker.
I) when a mystic takes damage from any attack, it retaliates doing one click of damage to the attacker.
J) therefore when a mystic critically misses they take damage from an attack and do one click of damage to themself (g+h+i).

The point most people here seem to be disagreeing with is D. Sorry to break it to you, but if A is true then so is D. Claiming that a critical miss is not an attack is a contradiction.

Retaliate: the word means to return like for like. For those of you who doubt this feel free to look it up.

Consider the following analogy:
A magician enchants an amulet with the power ‘whenever the bearer of this amulet is injured in battle, the person who injured him will be injured in return.’ The magician gives the amulet to a warrior who finds himself in battle. Every time someone injures him they suffer injury in return, eventually the warrior makes a mistake and injures himself, the amulet’s power affects him as well and he is injured by the amulet.

The point is this: mechanically it is the mystics TA, not the mystic that is doing the retaliation. If you turn off the TA the mystic is still there, but the retaliation doesn’t happen (which demonstrates that it is not the mystic doing the retaliating).

daedalus, did you not notice the part of the description of steal energy where it says "This character heals himself with a successful close combat attack"? A hit is necessary.

F and G are merely the convenient and assumed courses of thought that you use to think about critical misses, and cannot be used in the course of a logical proof. The source of critical miss damage is in actuality undefined.

And once it is safely in the hands of WizKids discretion, I don't think anyone can possibly think that the Mystic would be ruled to retaliate against himself.