It Is My Resolute Belief That X-51 Is Better Suited for the Role Of Executioner... Your Executioner!: Mind Control, but only to target friendly or opposing characters with the Robot keyword


Could he mind control himself?

No, you can't attack yourself unless an effect specifically says you can. "Friendly characters" isn't enough to attack yourself.

I don't think this is spelled out perfectly in the rule book, but I'm pretty confident this is the way it works.

EDIT: This is what the rule books says:So, not perfectly drafted since that could be read as "friendly character" permitting a character to target itself with an attack, but I don't think that was the intent.

If anybody has anything else showing you can't do it, I'd be interested to see.

You hit my nail on the head with the “friendly character”.

I remember there was an issue a while back where people realized Pulse Wave always targeted its own user ("... targeting all characters..."). This had to be fixed, of course, so the word "other" was added to Pulse Wave in a few key places ("... targeting all other characters...").

Given that, it seems to me like this effect does indeed let Bastion MC himself.

I dunno. Even though it isn't clearly stated it seems like they meant "friendly characters" lets you attack friendly characters and "all characters" could let you attack yourself and friendly characters. I just don't think being able to attack a friendly character lets you attack yourself.

Generally when an effect says something like “friendly characters modify defense +1” this includes the character. While this is not entirely the same there is an obvious way to interpret it such that you could mind control yourself.

Exactly. There's a precedent for "friendly characters" including the character using the effect, while there's no precedent for it being excluded. Given how vague the wording is in the quote from the Rulebook above, I think the most reasonably interpretation is to include the character itself among "friendly characters" for attacks, until we can get a ruling.

While the rules seem to say that it's possible for Bastion to Mind Control himself, what advantage would he gain by doing so? He still gets a token and he is limiting his possible actions.

It’s a different form of move-and-attack. Not only can he make a close attack after moving, which Running Shot obviously won’t let him do, but he can also choose to attack before he moves, instead.
Of course, he has to hit himself with MC first, so it’s a big risk, but it could be useful.

He also has , so he could MC someone else along with himself, to get more out of the action.

Extra mobility. On some clicks he would be able to Running Shot, target himself and another character with Mind Control, and then choose the order in which he takes the attack/movement from the Mind Control.

This will be errat'ed in a heartbeat

If you can shoot out of adjacency and you use EE on an adjacent opposing character, do you target yourself? The power states "all other characters" adjacent to an original character become targets... so. As far as I know, you do not attack yourself with EE. So Bastion should not MC himself either.

"other" in that case means "other than the user". That's why you can't hit yourself with EE.
No character is adjacent to itself, so "other" would be superfluous if it referred to the original target.

Other refers to different from the original target. The phrase is "all other characters adjacent to an original target". The attacker matches that. You are another character and you are adjacent to the original target.

The reason you can't target yourself is because the rules just don't allow you to do so, unless it SPECIFICALLY says so. Neither Bastion's power or EE says so. I'm going with NO, you cannot MC yourself.

No character is ever adjacent to itself, so there would be no reason to say "other" if they just wanted every character adjacent to the original target. Then "all characters adjacent to the original target" would work just as well.
The reason it says "other" is the same reason Pulse Wave does: To exclude the user.

I'm certain this is the case, because I remember being surprised when it was first pointed out to me. I'll see if I can find the thread I read it from, but that was a while ago

Edit:
I found the post, but unfortunately, it didn't have a link to any WK ruling:
http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showth...67#post9103667