So X-Wing doesn't have as discreetly defined a stack as, say, Magic The Gathering, but there are circumstances where you can recursively dive into effects. For example:

An A-Wing has Rage, PTL, and EI. He boosts, PTLs a Focus, and before PTL resolves its stress, he Experimentals a Rage. Rage resolves and gives him 2 stress, then EI finishes resolving and gives him 1 stress, and finally PTL finishes resolving and lands him another stress. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's still legit in the current rules right?

If so, it seems to me like the multiple triggers in "Harpooned!" can do the same recursive dives. For example:

1) Two or more enemies are at range 1 of each other. For this example, "Howlrunner" and "Night Beast" (just so it's clear which ship I'm attacking in this example)

2) I harpoon both ships, doing a damage each and applying the condition

3) I shoot Howlrunner, getting a crit through

4) The crit will trigger Harpooned's radius burst, and damage Night Beast since he's range 1.

5) This non-attack damage triggers Jostero to shoot Night Beast.

I think this interrupts Harpooned and gives Jostero a shot before Harpooned is discarded (and Jostero seems worded differently from "after attack" counters like Dengar). In that case:

6) Jostero pushes a crit through on Night Beast, triggering Night Beast's Harpooned to damage Howlrunner

7) Howlrunner dies from this final damage.

8) Howlrunner's Harpooned pulses damage "when you are destroyed", hitting Night Beast and killing him.

9) Night Beast pulses damage when destroyed as well.

10) Only now that effects can't keep stacking up do we start to unwind the stack, resolving effects and discarding Harpooned condition cards.

If enough ships were clustered and harpooned, this could continue, further increasing the odds of killing another harpooned ship and pulsing yet more damage... (I realize it's probably impractical to pack that many harpoons and set up a scenario like this, but that's not the point)

So, assuming I haven't royally screwed up the logic somewhere (a big assumption), my question is, do triggers work like this? Can a card like this be interrupted and triggered multiple times?

a) Harpooned has multiple triggers on it that could each be triggered separately before previous triggers have resolved fully (e.g. death trigger happens while the crit trigger is still resolving but interrupted by other events).

b) It also has triggers that could be activated repeatedly by multiple instances, e.g. interrupt shots between Dengar/Jostero and Quickdraw both pushing crits through on each other while they're harpooned. Could the crit trigger on the same Harpooned card be activated multiple times, recursively (crit rule triggers something else, which eventually triggers the crit rule again before the first one has resolved and discarded the card)? Though Dengar and similar counter-shots are special in that they're "after defending", which is specially handled on the timing chart (and different from Jostero's trigger), so I suspect they don't work. If Jostero and Quickdraw behave the same way on the chart, this item maybe moot then.

I'm just not sure, but it seems legit? And if so that's a neat delve into how effects trigger and resolve in X-Wing. I wonder if FFG has thought it through to this extent or if it's just me taking the logic beyond what they intended.

Yea, it's ugly and I'm sorry. But I find this fascinating .

So far every additional attack that sounds like it interrupts something has been faq'd to happen at the same step. Jostero is worded similarly to QD, which is "This instant thing happened, ATTACK!" and QD was faq'd where if it happens as part of an attack she gets her retaliation attack at the same point Dengar would, i dont see why Jostero would be any different

As it is, yes he interrupts the condition since you do the splash damage then discard/deal card to self. The destroyed splash is unfortunately not listed as "Or" so if something triggers it before the card is actually discarded it would go off. I highly highly expect him to get the QD faq

As I read it, that first post is overly complex for discussing one of the questions (sorry all). A simpler scenario is:

1) Harpoon both Night Beast and Howlrunner

2) Attack and crit Howlrunner

3) Howlrunner's harpoon condition pulses damage from the crit, killing night beast

4) Night Beast's harpoon card pulses damage on his death, applying enough damage to kill howlrunner

5) Is Howlrunner's condition card already discarded (wasn't paused by step 4, so it discarded and killed howlrunner before night beast's condition triggered), or does it now pulse damage?

Two-harpoon scenarios like this are not unthinkable, and the question is whether this scenario pulses 2 or 3 damage.

In the case of Jostero, I think you have to bring into account initiative. If the Condition card on your opponent and Jostero trigger at the same time, initiative decides what resolves first.

In the scenario proposed by Wazat, the player with both ships Harpooned decides order to resolve and Howlrunner would lose the card before Nightbeast pulsed her.

Of course, if the player knew Howlrunner was going to die and wanted that pulse to affect an enemy ship close enough, he could choose to nest the Nightbeast trigger and let it happen.

"That's like asking the square root of a million. No one will ever know. "