Normally the knife (at least I think it was the knife, correct me if I'm wrong please) is just melee, but it has an ability where you can drop it and do a check to perform a ranged attack, and the card tells you the damage. My question is, do you ignore the keeper drawing the battle card because of this? I'm assuming you don't draw a battle card and just go by the check on the knife card, right?

The Knife can either be used as a sharp melee attack - with combat cards as usual.

AND it can be used as a card ability, where you do a dexterity test to damage a monster. Since the card ability action is not an attack, the investigator may be subject to an evade test.

My interpretation is no evade test with a knife throw. P. 15, "Attacking a monster does not require making an evade test. This attack may be unarmed, with a weapon, or with an "attack" Spell card. This attack does not need to target a monster in the investigator's space."

This has been discussed several times before, with either typewriter, holy water or brass knuckles. All of these have Card Ability actions which are _not_ attacks, and therefore should incur an evade test.

However, Call of the Wild introduced an Attack-trait that specifically makes the card ability actions evade-free. Perhaps the knife and some other cards will get that trait in a revised version...

demozon, noted, thanks. I'll search for those other posts, do you have any links in case I miss some?

Thanks, Mack

I don't have a heap of links, but one I found pointed me to a relevant part of the rules.

Call of the Wild, page 9, under "Attacking Allies"

Cards that specifically affect monsters or investigators cannot be used against allies. For example, the special Action of the “Lantern,” “Knife,” “Guitar,” “Holy Water,” “Dynamite,” and “Typewriter” cannot be used against allies because they specifically target monster figures (and are not attacks).

The most relevant part to take from this is the last part; the card ability actions are not attacks.