OMG! Apologies for the topic tangent, but this reply made me remember the best victory I ever had. Late in the game (read: everyone was dial deep and hanging on for dear life) ALL of both teams were clustered in the middle of the map and touching, when my opponent (buried in the middle of that mess) decided to EE.

Killing all of HIS figures and all BUT ONE of mine.

Wow I hadn't noticed that EE doesn't target the attacker anymore. I don't know how often that comes up since you'd need EE, improved targeting to make range attacks while based and a desire to use EE against an adjacent figure, but it is still good to know.

[Quote : Originally Posted by BrunoHarm View Post]
This is the only rule I can find that differentiates targeting for an attack vs. targeting for anything else. [/quote]

[quote: originally posted by Lantern Jordan view post]That rule is the crux of the entire conversation.[/quote]

What I'm trying to say is that giving that Pulse wave targets all characters, there is nothing about targeting in general that stops it from targeting the attacker.

Bringing up that it is an attack, doesn't mean anything unless there is a rule about attacking that applies. I think the crux of the conversation is targeting.

I'm not aware of any retaliators(though there may be) that don't specify either 'other' or 'opposing' for their attacks. Also, there are other modern age figures that 'could' attack themselves, such as:

And superfluous wording, though it might infer intent, does not supersede the rules. This appears to be a very valid point, and as written, I don't see how PW doesn't self target.

Agreed. As written, pulse wave hits the attacker. The attacker is within range and line of fire of itself. It can be targeted due to the "targeting all characters" phrase. I can find no rules that exclude the attacker from the effect.

The only reasons not to play the power like it targets the attacker are the intent shown by the "If more than one character is targeted" phrase, and because that's the way it's always worked in the past.

I know how it's being interpreted here, but given the context of this thread I don't see how the new EE can't target the attacker.

The language of Pulse Wave itself contains a reason to think it doesn't self-target (the last sentence, as has been discussed). There is no such contradiction in the language of EE, so textually there is no reason think EE does in fact hit the attacker. That is the difference.

Now if you are the type who doesn't care about textual arguments and goes straight to intent, then I guess you could make whatever argument you want about how it should work.

"all other" excludes the source of the power (in EE's case, the attacker). The same for powers that say "other friendly" which exclude the source of the power.

War Wheel can and I think there's one other SM/WW era retaliator.

I agree a literal reading of the rules leads to this conclusion. Based on internal game logic and history, though, this can't be how it works. Whether it's in the wording for Pulse Wave or in the wording for the exception in the rule book, I think it comes down to a Copy/Paste error.

I file this under one of those things we should get them to acknowledge but no one should seriously argue to have played this way at games.

So it doesn't hit friendlies now either?

Yes, EE will hit friendly characters. It targets "all other characters..." "Other" means other than the attacker and "all" means all. So everybody but the attacker.

For War Wheel, it depends on your interpretation of 'between', but I would not consider that to be inclusive of the squares occupied before and after moving.

There are no single-target pulsewaves!

Anyway, these are my favorite kinds of threads. Nice catch, OP.

Yeah, Dormammu could hit himself. Which further reinforces the point about Energy Explosion.

As for Pulse Wave, the only valid point being made is that something in the rules is poorly written.

I'm sure most people want to be done with this thread, but I had to look and I found somebody who I believe could do a single target pulse wave, proving that it would be possible and thus making the current language not an impossibility, contrary to my prior arguments (though I think my arguments are still valid for practical purposes).If this guy has his Broken Bond tokens, and pulse waves with only one opposing character in range and line of fire and no friendlies, then there would only be one target, since Exodia can't be targeted, and pulse wave doesn't prevent the attacker from using powers and abilities. Right? 5 damage too, ouch.

I know your talking targeting but PW does say "other" characters.