Attacking yourself with the Attack action

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
#1

“ An Attack is your hero attempting to inflict some kind of direct harm — that is, deal damage — to another character, whether it’s physical (a series of punches), emotional (mocking taunts), or mental (psychic blasts). The amount of damage dealt by an Attack is determined by the number on the effect die, which is usually the Mid die. Some powers or abilities allow you to use a different die for the Attack’s effect die. Any character or object with a Health rating or a minion die can be the target of an Attack. (If you’re trying to break an object that doesn’t have a Health rating — smash through a steel door, etc. — that’s an Overcome action.)”

Ok so there appears to be some confusion on what this means, particularly with the phrase

“Any character or object with a Health rating or a minion die can be the target of an Attack”

I read it as that you cannot attack yourself with a basic attack action, and that the second phrase is just clarifying the potential targets of attacks, but not as to contradict the first part of the explanation.

Certainly abilities do allow you to attack yourself and so trigger certain effects but I have interpreted that to mean you actually need those abilities to attack yourself, it’s not a default to do so.

How do people interpret this?

#2

My feeling is that for the most part a single attack needs to hit a target other than yourself. Once you are hitting multiple targets or an ability says you can hit yourself then you are a valid target.

#3

So, I can’t punch myself?

#4

Sure, but I would say you couldn’t use that to trigger abilities, unless it specifically said you could. So for example an ability might say “attack yourself and do x” as opposed to “when you are attacked do x”.

Of course I could be entirely wrong on that.

#5

And the Discord conversation that sparked all of this, I might add, involved usage of the two following abilities:

External Combustion (A): Attack up to two targets using [power]. Take damage equal to your Mid die.
Energy Redirection (I): When you take damage from [energy/element], you may also deal that much damage to another target.

I am of the opinion that, when a hero is using External Combustion, they may choose themself as one the two targets to be attacked. Obviously, Justindoodler does not agree with this. I am of the opinion that the “Any character or health object with a Health rating or a minion die can be the target of an Attack” allows someone to attack themself.

As there are no official answers that have been given out, the general consensus reached on the Discord (which Justindoodler neglected to bring over) was:
If the first sentence is intended to be prescriptive and the mechanical definition, then Justin is correct.
If the first setnence is descriptive, with the latter parts defining the mechanical definition, then Justin is not correct.

1 Like
#6

Apologies- I was just trying to start a fresh discussion rather than bring any conclusions from that, to see how people interpret the rules as is.

I appreciate that abilities imply you can attack yourself so it’s definitely not clear cut. If it turns out you can in fact target yourself then the first part of the Attack description needs to be rewritten.

#7

My main reason for thinking that one can Attack oneself is that that makes the most narrative sense. There is narratively nothing stopping someone from doing that. If a character wants to punch himself to convince a villain that he is being mind-controlled for some reason, he should be able to.

As for activating Abilities, if a character can heal from absorbing Cosmic energy, shouldn’t blasting herself with Cosmic energy allow her to heal?

#8

In theory yes but I have always assumed the game is balanced so you can’t use those abilities all the time. Healing feels pretty rare and potent in the game so if you have the ability to heal from a specific energy directed against you, that’s not going to come up a lot so it’s balanced. If you can just blast your face and heal from it it feels too easy to abuse and mot particularly cinematic or comic booky.

But I suppose my main issue is that I can’t choose to ignore the first part of the description of Attack regarding other characters.

This is also explained in the Gameplay guide:

If your hero tries to deals damage to another character, whether it’s physical (a series of punches), emotional (mocking taunts), or mental (psychic blasts), that’s an Attack.

#9

Wording is important, so it depends on the wording.

As far as a Basic Attack Action, yes. From SCRPG pg 24:

Any character or object with aHealth rating or a minion die can be the target of an Attack.

Some attacks I would say, no. For example, some attacks automatically include yourself. You can’t choose the same target twice.

#10

If that was all the wording regarding Attack, I would have no issue with attacking yourself. However it does proceed the part about only attacking other characters. That section, to me, is just defining what a character is, as oppose to something without a health score, which would require an Overcome action rather than an Attack.