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, 20 September 2014
Greetings, This questions came up today in some games. Question 1) Player A attacks player B with 3 personalities, player B defends with one and plays come one at a time uses the additional action to issue a challenge but the duel comes to a tie. Player B Sole defender also has a ward of air on him. If he uses ward of air when he sees that the duel is a tie what happens? 1) both personalities live 2) Players B personality lives and A dies 3) Both die because ward of air is not usable in this occasion (for some reason)
Question 2) Player B attacks player A with 3 personalities. Players A defends with 3 personalities. Player B Plays come one at a time. The question is can he use the second ability to start sending home his personalities? Or he needs to wait till there is only 1 defending personality? This probably is very obvious but i am not a native English speaker so i am not sure if the word "and" means that only if there is one personality defending you can use the second ability of the terrain exactly or if it has nothing to do with the first part of the sentence. Thank you in advance for your time.
Ward of air text *Before this Shugenja, or any Personality if this Shugenja is Air, is destroyed by a Battle action, you may destroy this Spell to negate it. Air Battle: Move this Shugenja home.*
Come one at a time text *While there is exactly one defending Personality here, he has the ability, "Repeatable Battle: Challenge a target enemy Personality. Destroy the loser" and each player has the ability, "Repeatable Battle: Move home your target attacking Personality. Bow him as he moves." Battle: Destroy a Terrain (if able). Put this Terrain into play. Take an additional action granted by it.*
Brook Cunningham (rules official), 21 September 2014
Greetings, This questions came up today in some games. Question 1) Player A attacks player B with 3 personalities, player B defends with one and plays come one at a time uses the additional action to issue a challenge but the duel comes to a tie. Player B Sole defender also has a ward of air on him. If he uses ward of air when he sees that the duel is a tie what happens? 1) both personalities live 2) Players B personality lives and A dies 3) Both die because ward of air is not usable in this occasion (for some reason)
The active player chooses the order in which consequences of a duel are applied. Since in most cases of your scenario, this would be Player A (exception: during a Reprisal Attack Phase), he would be best served by choosing the Ward of Air's Personality to die first, then the Ward of Air, if used, would negate the remaining effects of the action, including his own Personality's death, resulting in the answer being "1)".
Question 2) Player B attacks player A with 3 personalities. Players A defends with 3 personalities. Player B Plays come one at a time. The question is can he use the second ability to start sending home his personalities? Or he needs to wait till there is only 1 defending personality? This probably is very obvious but i am not a native English speaker so i am not sure if the word "and" means that only if there is one personality defending you can use the second ability of the terrain exactly or if it has nothing to do with the first part of the sentence. Thank you in advance for your time.
The "and" does indeed mean that the conditions set by the "If" clause apply to both granted abilities. So, no dueling AND no leaving until there is only one Defender.