Trickster effect on power spent to attack?

[ChuckG]

If I target Loki with an attack that costs power, but he uses ‘trickster’ and moves out of range, do I still spend the power? 

According to the step by step in the new rule book (see highlighted part) it looks like if the attack sequence ends at 2d (which is what ‘trickster’ says happens) I would never pay the power in step 3.

[Thoras]

Several variations of how this works out are found across these threads. In most cases, you are correct, but there are nuances

https://forums.atomicmassgames.com/tags/trickster/

 

[ChuckG]

I saw a lot of different threads, but most talked about power spent on things prior to the attack sequence such as hit and run or charge, where the power is spent in this case.
 

I just didn’t see a conversation around the power that would be spent on the attack itself and I have heard a lot of different thoughts on this so I just wanted a definitive answer.

[Thoras]

9 minutes ago, ChuckG said:

I just didn’t see a conversation around the power that would be spent on the attack itself

If the attack is not a beam or area attack, the power isn’t spent until step 3, as you mentioned. Since the attack is ended before you get to this step, you don’t end up spending the power.

If the attack is a beam or area attack, the timing steps follow a slightly different order. In that case, the power is spent before any targeting occurs and thus the power is spent in those cases.