This has come up in some Play By Forum games running over on BoardGameGeek:

If Dracula Wolf Forms into a city containing a Hunter, with the resulting Combat ending by the play of a succesful Escape as Bat, does the Wolf Form stay on the trail or is it removed as soon as the city card is replaced by the Escape as Bat move?

RedShark92 said:

I'd say it's removed. The location card is attatched to the power card, and so, as soon as the first one is removed, then the second - imho - has to follow.

I dont think so.

Dracula makes a move - uses wolf form, and plays it with a city card (face up since he moves to a city containing a hunter). Now the battle begins and dracula uses Escape as bat, and he make another move (escape as bat doesnt replace current city card, it allows dracula to move two spaces away following normal rules).

Trail would look like this

1) His current location (to where he escaped)

2) Location along with a wolf form power card

3) This turns starting location

He can mature any encounters that "off" by his two moves he makes this turn.

Rasiel said:

Why are you saying this? On the "Escape as a bat card" it is stated that, whenever you move in bat form, you have to substitute the location card where you are now with the new location card (it's not written under the picture on the left, but in the lower box on the right). So it seems to me a replacement rather than something else

Sorry, i didnt have the card with me, i just thought its the same as evasion event.

Still the location card is only replaced by another location card so wolf form should remain on draculas trail (location card doesnt off the track nor it is removed otherwise like maturing vampire or so and escape card also doesnt say anything about removing it).

Remember that the last card doesnt need to be a location card and escape says to replace location card you are in. So if trail would look like this

feed-hide-city A

and battle occurs where dracula flees as bat the new order would be

feed-hide-new City

because hide doesnt express the location dracula is in, city A is replaced instead ... and all power cards remain in place.

more here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/484533/tricky-trail-situations-double-back-escape-as-bat

That's a very good point. The main point is how we should handle the "Escape as a bat" card. What happens to the wolf form is a direct consequence. So, if I understand correctly, you say that since you can play Escape as a bat even if the leftmost card on your trail is not a location, and since you have to substitute the location card with the new location, if you have a track like

feed - hide - city

it should become

feed - hide - new city

I think this is kind of confusing. I'm with you when you say do not remove these cards from play (it's a situation very similar to a "clearing the trail" situation, Feed and Hide remain on the track if they are in the zone not to be cleared, even if the city they refer to is no longer on the track), but to avoid confusion I'd probably have played the cards in this order:

new city - feed - hide

Shouldn't change that much, you always have three cards on your trail.

My main issues regards the Wolf form and the Double back. These powers are attatched to the location cards they are played with, and so, under normal circumstances, as soon as that location is removed from the trail, the power is discarded with it (as per clearing the trail after maturing an encounter). I interpret the "substitute your current location" as "discard the actual location and enter play a new location card". Being Wolf form attatched to the old location, it is discarded. Obviously, just my interpretation of the rules.

For purposes of clearing cards, the Feed, Hide, or Dark Call are removed or remain in the Trail, depending on their position in the Trail, just like Location cards. However, the Wolf Form or Double Back Power cards are played together with a Location card . For purposes of clearing cards from Dracula’s Trail, each of these these two Power cards, together with its attached Location card, counts as only one card , as shown in the Clearing Dracula’s Trail” diagram.

This is the section of the rules that comes closest to addressing this point. I'd say, since they count as one card, anything that removes the Location card also removes the attached Power card.

Thank you Hannibal for pointing out that specific paragraph of the rules. This is why I was thinking about removing the Wolf form too

Hannibal Rex said:

What you wrote is not true.

This is the rules, but Hide follows special rules when clearing trail as you can see in the FAQ.

And the key sentence is " For purposes of clearing cards from Dracula’s Trail , each of these these two Power cards, together with its attached Location card, counts as only one card".

Escape as bat doesnt clear Draculas trail (in contrast to, for example, maturing vampire encounter), it replaces location card with another so WF should be attached to the new one for purposes of clearing Draculas trail. I can post a question to the FFG, but still i think I am right - no offence

I don't take offence Rasiel, and you're absolutely right that the rules are specific the clearing the trail. However, there is no mention at all about removing cards from the trail by means other than clearing it. This is more an indication of an inadvertent omission rather and implication that such a situation should be resolved in an entirely different way.

The only way for that to happen is Fangs/Escape as Bat, and FFG is notorious for creating situations with special cards which the rules fail to address adequately.

I too would be very happy to get an official FAQ entry on this question.

Me too. I've send a question to FFG using the "rules question" function on this forum. I hope they could help us to solve this kind of situation :.smiling::

Although this thread it's quite old, I would like to know if there's been some official answer to the escape as a bat/power cards issue...

I would like also to add my personal thoughts about this problem to what already said (which was strictly about how to interpretate the rules as they're written).

-note I write this recap below not to show "rules knowledge" but just to be sure if I well understood the various fleeing techniques-

As Dracula (at night) you're provided with three ways to flee from a combat:

Human form is obviously the worst because if you loose the die roll Dracula will be most probably wounded. so it should be used only during day.

Mist form is the "safest" as Dracula will pratically always succeed in fleeing no matter the roll result (except with holy water).

Bat form bargains some of the safety of mist to give Dracula the opportunity not only to interrupt the combat but also to move away from the hunter while otherwise it would stay in place open to attack from other hunters until his next turn. Also by replacing the location card in which the combat occured you can move again in a recently visited city (thus "crossing your trail" in a certain way...) without using double back or having to wait for the card to drop off...

So I think that this gives already the Dracula player (although nealry located by the hunters) a nice advantage.

Now if we allow the Dracula player to "unlock" one or more power cards simply by fleeing as a bat, this combat option becomes absurdly powerful in my eyes.

It would be easy for a smart player to exploit this to get the opportunity to use the same special power two turns in a row without waiting for the power card to drop off (opportunity given as a "prize" only by very special conditions such as maturing a new vampire). Ok, Dracula position would be nearly revealed, but not so much more than before this "trick" (the hunter(s) had to be already very close to him and they could end up much confused than before by this hit and run).

On a side note I'm not sure on how the Wolf Form card is placed on the trail: by reading some posts (also in other threads) I had the impression that it's placed on the same space on the trail of the "destination" location card (like with Double Back). The rulebook says it's placed along the location card, so I've interpretated this as you have to place them one after the other in two different spaces in the trail, like:

A) Origin City - Wolf Form - Destination City

and not

B) Origin City - Wolf Form + Destination City

This also because the manual specifies that the "Double Back" card is placed on top of the crossed (and moved to left-most position) location and with the other power cards specifies instead of a location.

To close this post, my idea is that in rules interpretation it should also be took account that bat form could become very unbalanced by allowing it to unlock one or more power cards...

About Wolf Form what do you think A) or B) ?

Thank you in advance for all answers

Byga,

the thread is old, but the question is still open. I never received an answer from FFG after posting the rules question, so I cannot refer anything official at this point.

Anyway, I've read your considerations and re-read all the thread and yeah, I'm more inclined to the "Wolf form remains on the track" point. I don't care if this can be misleading, but actually, having the chance of playing that power twice during the same night can be unbalancing for the game. So, I'll go with Rasiel now, even if I'd really like to have an official clarification.

As for your question... I've always played Wolf Form and the Location I move to on the same spot of the trail. Otherwise Dracula would move two cards on the right on his track and I'm not very comfortable with the idea of one single movement forcing two cards to drop off of the track

Ok friends, I got an answer from FFG:

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Hi Julia,