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, 7 February 2015
I want to make sure I have this correct.
I cannot combine the fear from zlkyt's family and another basic fear effect in the same unit to by pass followers, but I can increase zlkyt's family fear with courage interrupts and still bypass followers.
I can increase an unstoppable battle: fear with other normal fear effects in the same unit and it would still be unstoppable.
Ascendance could copy zlkyt's family and could bypass followers if I was attacking, but if I copy an unstoppable battle: fear with Ascendance, it would not be unstoppable, only the strength and any effects are copied.
Alex Jones (rules official), 13 February 2015
I want to make sure I have this correct.
I cannot combine the fear from zlkyt's family and another basic fear effect in the same unit to by pass followers, but I can increase zlkyt's family fear with courage interrupts and still bypass followers.
I can increase an unstoppable battle: fear with other normal fear effects in the same unit and it would still be unstoppable.
Ascendance could copy zlkyt's family and could bypass followers if I was attacking, but if I copy an unstoppable battle: fear with Ascendance, it would not be unstoppable, only the strength and any effects are copied.
I cannot combine the fear from zlkyt's family and another basic fear effect in the same unit to by pass followers, but I can increase zlkyt's family fear with courage interrupts and still bypass followers. Correct.
I can increase an unstoppable battle: fear with other normal fear effects in the same unit and it would still be unstoppable. Correct.
Ascendance could copy zlkyt's family and could bypass followers if I was attacking, but if I copy an unstoppable battle: fear with Ascendance, it would not be unstoppable, only the strength and any effects are copied. No. Ascendance copies the effect, not the action. If the strength of the Fear effect is dependent on the target, then the Fear effect created by Ascendance has its strength calculated in the same way. However, the targeting requirements of Ascendance are those of standard Fear actions as described in the Rulebook, so if you copy Zlykt's Family's Fear effect, you may not bypass Followers. Similarly, other conditions are ignored, so you do not have to be attacking. Furthermore, other effects created by the Fear action are also not copied. For example, you copy Nezumi Remnants' Fear 2, the conditional destruction effect is ignored. Another example: If you copy Moto Tadasu's Fear 3, it's not Unstoppable, you can't target Spells, and it won't destroy anything - in the absence of other actions/traits/etc.