I killed myself, did I win?

Question

I played an odd game of Shadow Hunters the other day. There were five players: two Shadows, two Hunters and one Neutral. I was dealt the Neutral, Charles.

For the unaware, his win condition states:

At the time you kill another character, the total number of dead characters is 3 or more.

His special ability is:

After you attack, you may give yourself 2 points of damage to attack the same character again.

Partway through the game, the following situation presented itself:

• It was my turn and I'd just attacked a player that was so damaged one more attack would surely kill them
• I was within two points of death
• One character had already died

I declared that I was going to use my ability, revealing my card, and electing to attack the wounded player again, given that I would take two damage in doing so. I rolled a good attack and killed the player in question. I then subtracted my two damage killing myself. Three characters were dead, as my win condition required. My group were happy to award me the win under such strange circumstances, but I'd like to clarify:

Was this a legitimate move in this scenario? Did I win?

Also, given that the already-dead character was a Shadow and the nearly-dead character was a Hunter, was this the only way I could have achieved a solo victory in this game?

Answer 1

I don't know of any official rulings on the game, but I would not interpret that as a win for Charles.

The sticking point is:

At the time you kill another character, the total number of dead characters is 3 or more.

So what was the total number of dead characters when you killed the Hunter? Your interpretation is that it was 3, because a Shadow was dead, the Hunter was dead, and Charles was dead.

However, I don't think this works - at the time you killed the Hunter, Charles must have been alive; dead characters can't attack, after all. Thus, Charles would have died after killing the Hunter, which means that at the time you killed the Hunter the total number of dead characters was 2.

Fundamentally, the reason why this situation is confusing is because Charles should not have been able to attack at all. I'm not sure if it's an official rule (I'll check later), but a lot of other game mechanics assume that if you reach maximum damage at any point during your turn, your turn ends and your character is dead - for instance, if you have two health remaining and draw the Spider card, you're dead and your turn ends, you don't get to attack.

Since Charles' ability deals two damage to him first, and then allows him to attack, by triggering your ability you should have simply died without doing anything.

As for the last part of your question, I think there is no way for Charles to be the sole winner in a five player game. As soon as three people who aren't him are dead, the game is over; thus, he either wins a joint victory alongside the Shadows or the Hunters (by taking the last kill), or he doesn't win.

Answer 2

I can answer my own question there at the end about a Charles solo victory in a five-player game (excluding the dubious scenario above):

Charles can win if he uses a weapon like the Machine Gun that allows him to kill multiple characters at once.

E.g. a Hunter and a Shadow remain, then Charles kills both surviving characters at once. Both factions have been destroyed, but neither can claim victory since at least one faction member must survive* therefore the only character that can claim victory is Charles.

*I don't actually recall if the rules explicitly state this. They certainly imply that a Shadow/Hunter must survive for their faction to win. If that's not the case, then this scenario results in a joint victory for everyone and there is probably no way for Charles to win a solo victory.