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, 25 January 2014
Something of a tie-in to my other question about Ichiro Otani and Celestial Swords, regarding item force modifiers and bonuses:
When a card has a stat that is "equal to" another referenced value, is that value considered to be the base stat? Or is it considered zero by default, as with absent stats, and once it can reference the other value, the stat is set to that value (as in, it is given a bonus sufficient to raise it to that value)?
For instance, let's say that I have a Seppun's Blessed Blade attached to a personality with, I dunno, 3 PH, so the Blade has a Force modifier of +3. Then I target the Blade with A Pure Stroke, raising its Force and Chi modifiers to double their base values. Is the Blade's Force modifier raised to +6? Or is its base Force modifier considered an absent stat and/or simply zero, and thus it would remain at +3F?
A player, 25 January 2014
The new force modifier will be +3, because your printed modifier is 0. See, I think you're confused about the meaning of "base", which is also a term no longer in use. "Base", or in Ivory Edition, "printed" stat values are those physically written in ink in the card and thus never change, they can't. doesn't matter how many effects or bonuses/penalties/modifiers are applied. Your Seppun Blade printed Force modifier is, and will always be, zero. Your current modifier will depend on the trait and other effects.
A Pure Stroke fails to double the modifier from Seppun's Blessed Blade because the +3 isn't the printed stat modifier, instead it's the current force modifier as boosted by the item's trait.