A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
A player, 11 March 2013
So just following up viewtopic.php?f=59&t=102222 to make sure I understand.
Choosing targets is an effect for range attacks even via strategies. But normal actions where the target is before the semi colon is a constraint etc, so for example if my only personalities were present were 2 goju sawaki when they played say power of strength he still has to target my guys if I play bad kharma because targets before the : cant be negated. But the range attack targets as an effect so via precision the targettings negated by bad kharma which prevents me triggering koshin keep.
A player, 11 March 2013
So just following up http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 9&t=102222 to make sure I understand.
Choosing targets is an effect for range attacks even via strategies. But normal actions where the target is before the semi colon is a constraint etc,
Targets aren't effects nor costs, regardless where they are made. Targets are just targets. Putting them in the constraints block or the effects block only marks whether they are mandatory or not. Also, it's a colon.
so for example if my only personalities were present were 2 goju sawaki when they played say power of strength he still has to target my guys if I play bad kharma because targets before the : cant be negated.
I beg your pardon? Targets have to be chosen, yes. They can't be "negated" since they aren't effects nor costs. Again, the colon doesn't change this.
But the range attack targets as an effect so via precision the targettings negated by bad kharma which prevents me triggering koshin keep.
I'm not sure I follow, probably because you're assuming a couple of wrong premises. The problem isn't negating targets (this simply doesn't happen in L5R, at most you can interfere with the targets leaving the opponent unable to find a legal target) but rather negating effects from the action.
"Ranged Attack" is a shorthand for a series of effects. Koshin Keep will also add more new effects to it. According to this, Precision would read:
Battle: “You may target a Follower or a Personality without Followers in the current enemy army. If its Force is equal to or less than 3, destroy it.”
Battle: “You may target a Follower or a Personality without Followers in the current enemy army. If its Force is equal to or less than 3, destroy it. <If this did not destroy it,> reduce the target's Force by 3 and you may take an additional Ranged Attack Battle action that may only target the same card".
This (the above paragraph) is what Bad Kharma would negate (the entire block). The target would still have to be chosen because that's a game procedure and can't be skipped but everything else fails - including the additional Ranged Attack Battle action.
In the case of Power of Strength under Koshin Keep this would translate into:
Battle: Choose your performing unbowed Personality with 7 or higher base Force and target two enemy Personalities, each with unit Gold Cost lower than your performer's Gold Cost: Bow one of them. <If the other target is a Personality without Followers and its force is equal or less than the first target's force>, destroy it. <If this did not destroy it,> reduce the target's Force by <the first target's force> and you may take an additional Ranged Attack Battle action that may only target the same card.
This TL;dr block is what Bad Kharma negates. It just happens that the entire constraints block (the performer and the two targets) still has to happen (there's no cost to ignore), but that would be the same if Power of Strength was worded differently.