Besides the intent, is there any reason PW doesn't target the user with the attack?

Think about this.

If you were able to hit yourself with Pulse Wave as the attacker, the attack would be negated because you are not able to use powers or abilities. Since Pulse Wave is a power you would not be able to use it.

You answered your own question. That was the point.

Yup.. The precedent is there. It's clear. You always pulsewave yourself. I don't know why they put the part in about a single target, because there's always at least two.. strange.

All kidding aside, I can't argue with the wording. The power only seems to exempt you from losing your powers and abilities. not from being targeted. It should read "all other characters"

How did I do that? Am I missing something? The powers turned off say "other characters" but the attack says "all characters".

I figured it was an intent thing, just making sure I didn't miss something.

It isn’t just intent. It’s the rule against superfluity. If you targeted yourself you would always have two targets since there must be an opposing character. Therefore the last sentence about if there is more than one target is superfluous and oddly written. It would just say this attack deals 1 damage instead of normal damage. The way the last sentence is written shows that the middle sentence about who to target must mean you don’t target yourself. But yes it could have been better written.

I’m pretty sure there is a thread about this already.

I feel like the "all characters" line in the rule book is actually poorly written. I don't think all characters ever actually means that a character targets itself (I think that is intended to cover friendly characters). And the sidebar that follows that section actually calls out Pulse Wave as a power that targets friendlies.

Otherwise a lot of the Colossal Retaliators would also KO themselves.

But haven't a lot of special powers been ruled that the character also targets itself? I feel like there is precedent.

Such as?

This is not a new issue, it has come up in the past. Aside from Energy Explosion targeting an adjacent character, I can't think of anything where an attacking character would be hitting itself with its own attack.

And come to think of it, I'm not even certain the EE thing is a problem any longer under the current rules, since that was caused by Area of Effect, which is gone. EE now has the same wording as some Colossal Retaliations, and other similar effects.

If you can EE yourself, then Giant-Man here is always going to hit himself in the face with his plane wing.

Can you perplex yourself?

Edit: both EE and Giant man say "all Other characters" which sounds like it excludes the attacker. That would be quite a change for EE, I'd like to hear a ruling on that.

Is there a rule somewhere that makes an exception to targeting exclusively for attacks?

Is Perplex an attack? What does this have to do with anything?

I know you used to be able to splash yourself with EE (even before AoE was a thing). Which is further why I think that line in the rule book is something that is poorly written. I am going to look at the 2014 rule book whenI get home to see how it was written then.

This is the only rule I can find that differentiates targeting for an attack vs. targeting for anything else.

From the 2014 rules-
Compare to the current EE, specifically the lack of "all other characters". And yes, EE could splash the user prior to AoE, and just like AoE, the splash damage didn't target.

That rule is the crux of the entire conversation.