Hiding Davith - Is it possible?

[DarthNebbish 1]

If this is settled, I apologize, but I searched for an answer and didn't see it.

Davith's Cloak and Dagger ability:
"While attacking with a melee weapon, you gain: Surge: Hide"

Hidden condition card text:
"After you resolve an attack, you must discard this condition."

One reading of this suggests that if Davith rolls a surge in his melee attack, he can spend it on the Hide condition, but as soon as that same attack resolves, he must discard the condition. Here's the reasoning:

According to RRG p6:
Any ability that is resolved “while attacking” or “while defending” can be used at any point during the attack.
 
However, the act of spending surges only occurs in Step 5 (of 7). So in Step 5, he spends the surge to Hide. Presumably, only after steps 6 and 7 happen is the attack considered "resolved". At that point he's forced to discard the Hidden card per its text.

The problem with this interpretation is that it seems that Davith's Cloak and Dagger ability would be worthless since he could only get the condition while attacking, but then must immediately discard it. Has there been an official rule on this?

[Cremate 539]

Surges are spent during step 5 of the attack, but the effects of the surges only resolve later. Extra damage and pierce, for instance, are resolved during step 7, while others are only applied after the attack resolves, such as cleave, blast, and (almost) every condition.

That allows Davith to shed his old Hidden before he gains a new Hidden - and the same goes for a number of other figures that can Hide or Focus.

[DTDanix 845]

You gain conditions after the attack resolves too.

[a1bert 4,115]

Note the difference between a condition keyword (Hide) and the condition (Hidden).

Hidden is discarded after the attack resolves. It is a mission rule, so it happens first. Then, if the target suffered damage from the attack, Hide gives a new Hidden condition.

It works exactly like Focus/focused.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1631857/ability-resolution-order-during-attacks

Edited May 29, 2018 by a1bert

[DarthNebbish 1]

I see. So it sounds like after the first successful attack, as long as Davith can cause at least one damage on each melee attack, he can remain hidden for the whole mission after the first attack.

[Stompburger 685]

1 hour ago, DarthNebbish said:

I see. So it sounds like after the first successful attack, as long as Davith can cause at least one damage on each melee attack, he can remain hidden for the whole mission after the first attack.

Yes, assuming the Surge from Hidden is not cancelled by an evade, removed (by a condition like Weaken), or spent on another surge ability.

[machfalcon 266]

Side note: In the last campaign that one of my groups finished,  I played Davith and found that it is a lot harder for Davith to remain hidden than you might anticipate.  There are often a lot of other things you want to use your surges on which makes it difficult to end his activation hidden.

Edited June 4, 2018 by machfalcon

[Uninvited Guest 834]

On 6/4/2018 at 5:19 PM, machfalcon said:

There are often a lot of other things you want to use your surges on which makes it difficult to end his activation hidden.

Agreed. This point is what makes Elusive Agent a very important ability.  Being able to recover strain AND hide really helps to alleviate some of surge decision making, even if it does exhaust.