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, 3 September 2014
Shibata Sensei says: "Recruiting Personalities has a minimum Gold Cost of 5 for you."
Comprehensive rules state: "Before paying for a card entering play, a player may permanently increase the card's Gold cost by the additional cost in its Invest trait, once, to get an additional effect after it enters play..."
Shosuro Hotaka has a base cost of 4 gold, and states: "Invest (2): Discard a card from your hand to make a target player lose Honor equal to half the Focus Value, rounded up."
Question: If I play with Shibata Sensei, and invest Shosuro Hotaka while recruiting him, does he cost 6g (base + Invest), or does he cost 7g (Shibata minimum + Invest)?
Brook Cunningham (rules official), 5 September 2014
Shibata Sensei says: "Recruiting Personalities has a minimum Gold Cost of 5 for you."
Comprehensive rules state: "Before paying for a card entering play, a player may permanently increase the card's Gold cost by the additional cost in its Invest trait, once, to get an additional effect after it enters play..."
Shosuro Hotaka has a base cost of 4 gold, and states: "Invest (2): Discard a card from your hand to make a target player lose Honor equal to half the Focus Value, rounded up."
Question: If I play with Shibata Sensei, and invest Shosuro Hotaka while recruiting him, does he cost 6g (base + Invest), or does he cost 7g (Shibata minimum + Invest)?
When determining the current value of a stat, minimums and maximums are always applied last, after bonuses and penalties.
So, an Invested Hotaka would only cost 6, even while using Shibata (printed + Invest "bonus" = 6, apply minimum of 5, still 6).