Beastmaster Shadow Hunter question

By Japles, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

So I was playing a game last night as OL and a hero had the beastmaster class. He had the Shadow Hunter skill which states "Your Wolf adds 1 additional gray die to its defense pool. Before activating your Wolf, you may choose to perform a Melee attack with it, using two red dice and two green dice as its attack pool. Then, your Wolf is defeated."

I know this is done on the hero turn before activating the wolf. But if the wolf is on the board and this card is used and the wolf is defeated. Can the hero as an action summon his wolf then use the Shadow hunter card skill again to attack with the wolf which is then defeated and then use his 2nd action to summon the wolf again and use the Shadow hunter card skill for a 3rd time?

I allowed it as OL because it seems like it would be possible to do but it really sucks being attacked by a wolf 3 times who has 2 red dice and 2 green dice. It cant even miss.

Just would like others thoughts on this?

Quote of FFG answer from another post :

From Justin Kemppainen (FFG staff):

“Shadow Hunter can only be triggered during the timing of the Beastmaster’s turn where he can activate the Wolf (before or after the 2 actions). Thus, he could trigger Shadow Hunter, perform 2 actions (one of which is to use Bound by the Hunt), and then trigger Shadow Hunter again. It can be used more than once, but only before/after the Beastmaster’s actions.”

so at max it can be trigerred 2 times !

Yup. "Before activating your wolf" doesn't mean "anytime before activating your wolf," it means "immediately before activating your wolf." There are only 2 windows for that, and that's before the wolf would be activated before the beastmaster's two actions, and before the wolf would be activated after the beastmaster's two actions. Max of twice.

Thanks for that response. That will take some pressure off me as the OL.

Also, the wolf is then not on the board for the Beastmaster's next turn, so next turn he can't do it twice because his wolf is not present at the beginning of his turn.

The less he can use it the better. As an attack with no blue dice it cant miss and can do some serious damage with 2 red power dice.

Personaly, I thought that the restriction on activating a familiar once per turn, either before OR after the hero's turn would have limited the skill's use to once per turn, but Justin's ruling quoted above seems to say it can be used twice...

At least you can gain comfort in knowing that every two turns, he can only use it once... :P

Personaly, I thought that the restriction on activating a familiar once per turn, either before OR after the hero's turn would have limited the skill's use to once per turn, but Justin's ruling quoted above seems to say it can be used twice...

At least you can gain comfort in knowing that every two turns, he can only use it once... :P

Shadow Hunter doesn't count as the wolf's activation. So you use it "before activating your wolf," but since your wolf gets discarded, he doesn't activate before you do your actions. Then, if you resummon him, he has not activated yet this turn, so he is free to activate after your actions (and you're free to use Shadow Hunter again, if you choose.)

It is a powerful skill. I think the beastmaster class is a great class for a hero. There are some good skills in the class.

Shadow Hunter doesn't count as the wolf's activation. So you use it "before activating your wolf," but since your wolf gets discarded, he doesn't activate before you do your actions. Then, if you resummon him, he has not activated yet this turn, so he is free to activate after your actions (and you're free to use Shadow Hunter again, if you choose.)

Wow, what tricky nuance! A special ability that has timing 'just before activation' which thus negates the activation, thus bypassing the 'only-one-activation-per-turn' rule, allowing another timing window of 'just before activation' after the hero turn.

A rules FAQ is so essential to this game.. it can get pretty darn complex and I never seem to feel I have grasped all the minutae.

Edited by Charmy