Packmates rule / can you discard items from the table to avoid helping?

[bexley]

We were playing Munchkin Bites! + the Pants Macabre deck. One player (werewolf) had the Packmates card and forced another werewolf player to help in a fight to gain the winning level. The second werewolf, to avoid winning the fight, chose to discard all the items on the table that gave him a combat bonus (headgear, footgear, weapons, fangpaste, etc.) so that he would be assisting werewolf #1 with only his level.

Can you discard items from the table at will, in combat or otherwise?

Does invoking the Packmates card mean that werewolf #2 is at that point an ally and must fight, or can he discard his race and avoid helping?

He tried to argue that he could just choose not to swing his sword, etc., but no one was buying that one. ;-)

[UnfairBanana]

Well, he can't just discard items willy-nilly.

As for the other parts, I believe races can be discarded at any time. However, I'm not sure if he would still have to help. By this, I mean he'd be discarding the race after being forced to help, and therefore already in combat>

But I could be wrong.

[MunchkinMan]

You can discard your Race at will, but it will not protect you from a Race-based immediate effect that you've already been affected by. As for discarding Items, that is something you can't do at will. Since he was in combat, and it was not his turn, he could not trade his Items away (because of being in Combat) for nothing in return, nor could he sell them (not his turn). Also, the preservation imperative is too strong to argue that one would not fight for one's life in combat. The point is, once you are in combat, you're Level and bonuses count, no matter how much you might wish they didn't. You need a card's special ability to mitigate your contribution to the combat.