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, 2 April 2014
So, this question arose in a recent game of mine against a friend.
Situation: I have an unbowed personality A and a bowed yojimbo personality B. My opponent announces M'rika's open action, with the intent of bowing personality A. I want to Final Sacrifice to force the action to target personality B.
Is personality B a legal target for said action?
Relevant card text:
Interrupt: Target your Yojimbo. The action must target him, if legal.
Open, w: Bow a target Personality.
My friend insisted that, since you can't bow someone who is already bowed, that he would not be a legal target for the action.
My understanding of the rules, however, is that the legality of targeting is separate from the success/failure of an effect. In other words, since M'rika's action only specifies "target personality", any personality is a legal target for the action. The effect of bowing will obviously fail if it targets an already bowed card, but that is not a problem of legal targeting.
1. Who is right?
2. By extension, is a bowed personality a "legal target" for fear effects?
3. And just to make 100% sure (pretty sure I saw a ruling on this before, but search couldn't find it) is a 4F personality a "legal target" for a RA/MA/Fear 3?
Jon Palmer (rules official), 2 April 2014
So, this question arose in a recent game of mine against a friend.
Situation: I have an unbowed personality A and a bowed yojimbo personality B. My opponent announces M'rika's open action, with the intent of bowing personality A. I want to Final Sacrifice to force the action to target personality B.
Is personality B a legal target for said action?
Relevant card text:
My friend insisted that, since you can't bow someone who is already bowed, that he would not be a legal target for the action.
My understanding of the rules, however, is that the legality of targeting is separate from the success/failure of an effect. In other words, since M'rika's action only specifies "target personality", any personality is a legal target for the action. The effect of bowing will obviously fail if it targets an already bowed card, but that is not a problem of legal targeting.
1. Who is right?
2. By extension, is a bowed personality a "legal target" for fear effects?
3. And just to make 100% sure (pretty sure I saw a ruling on this before, but search couldn't find it) is a 4F personality a "legal target" for a RA/MA/Fear 3?
You can't bow someone who is already bowed, but you can certainly target a bowed Personality with an effect that will bow them (if the effect cannot target a bowed Personality, it will say "target an unbowed Personality").
You're perfectly okay to play Final Sacrifice in this manner.