It was just pointed out to me that I may have been playing wrong all this time.
If the answer to my questions exists, forgive me for reposting it. My search-fu was weak.
Can you elect to pay an "optional cost" even if you know you will not be able to complete it?
Established precedent:
It has been established that Fanatics cards that require her to deal herself damage can be kept even if Fanatic is immune to damage. (She can choose to deal the damage, the fact that the damage is nullified after she tries to deal it has no effect on the fact that she chose to deal herself damage rather than lose the card).
If this precedent has been errata'd or further clarified, it may completely change or negate my confusion
Extensions of precedent needing clarification:
How does this apply to environment/villain effects with multiple penalties the heroes must choose between. For example:
"Each hero must discard a card or take 2 damage" - can a player with no cards in hand still choose to discard?
"Each hero must destroy one of his or her equipment cards or take damage" - can a player choose to destroy a card, look down at the table and realize that hero has no equipment in play, and thus avoid the damage by destroying a card that doesn't exist? What if the only equipment that player has in play is or has been made indestructible? Can they choose to destroy an indestructible item, realize it can't be destroyed, shrug and keep playing without taking the damage?
What rules exist for players choosing a negative effect, knowing that the negative effect will not be complete-able?
Fanatic's cards can be used because it doesn't say that she has to TAKE damage; it says she DEALS damage. The ending isn't important.
With discarding cards and destroying equipment, it says "anyone who does not (actually do it) takes damage." It specifically mentions an end point, so you have to complete it to fulfil the requirements.
As McBehrer mentioned, some environment cards explicitly say "anyone who does not..." or "if they take damage", meaning the action must be completed.
Many don't have that wording, but I think the key is that you must have a valid target for the action. If a card says a hero must deal damage to themselves or do something else, then they can choose to deal themselves damage (a valid action), even if some card effect will prevent that action from completing. If a card says you must destroy one of your cards or do something else, the first option is not valid if you have no ongoing card to destroy.
Further evidence comes from other cards that start with the same requirements as Fanatic's cards, like Polyphonic Flare. It starts with "deal yourself 2 sonic damage," but doesn't actually activate until the condition of TAKING damage is met.
Discarding your HAND is one exception, as you always HAVE a hand, even if there are no cards in it. So, theoretically, you could be able to discard your hand when you can't discard a card.
I don't remember which, but some other game I was playing specified that you can still have a hand, even if it has no cards in it. The rulebook doesn't specify one way or another, so I just followed the same rules.
Also, by technicality, discarding 0 cards if there are 0 cards in your hand IS discarding your hand. It's just not discarding cards. That's why if something says to discard 1, then you can't.
Hmm, I've thought of something that came up last week when I was playing.
If you need to draw from your deck, but there's nothing left in your deck to draw from, you shuffle your trash to become your deck so that you now have a deck to draw from. I recall in the rules it specifies this (apart from the fact that it's sort of obvious anyway ;)), where it says that you don't shuffle the trash just because the deck has run out, you wait until you need to draw.
So what happens when you only need to "reveal" cards? Is that the same as drawing? I play Nightmist a lot (which I may have possibly mentioned once or twice elsewhere ;)), and I had the situation where my deck was empty but I had trash, and I wanted to use a card which required me to reveal cards from the top of my deck. At the time I waited till I actually had a deck to reveal from, but can you just shuffle the trash in such an instance even though you're "revealing" rather than "drawing"?
Revealing is different than drawing, it came up in the IR playtesting. So if there is 1 card left in the deck and the card says to reveal the top 5, you only reveal the 1 card. And if you have 0 cards then you get to reveal nothing as there is nothing lefft to reveal, the deck is only shuffle when you need to "draw" a card.
I'm pretty sure it's been stated categorically before that "Reveal" does NOT force a shuffle. This matters most when fighting The Chairman, as it deteremines whether or not The Operative can force a shuffle.
Now, in your specific case, I have no idea what happens. Maybe the spell just fizzles?
Okay so I've been doing it right, that's cool :). So basically I have to make sure I never draw all my deck when playing Nightmist, as this means half my spells won't work since they're usually "reveal the top (or top two) cards of your deck, then do stuff with them".