Hello all, I'm currently in a debate over how these armours prevent you from paying costs on actions that require chi penalties.
Specifically the cards:
Hida Daizu, Bayushi Tomo and finally Isawa Oharu (Reaction: After an action from one of Haru's Spells resolves, even if she is bowed: Straighten her. Give her a -C Exhaustrion token.)
Now, Oharu with the Clan Armour works, because the cost is to apply a token to her, which you can do. Does she die? No, because her armour keeps her Chi at 5. If for whatever reason the armour came off, she'd go boom.
However, Daizu with the Armour has a minimum Chi of 5, meaning in an attempt to use his ability, you would fail to pay the cost of lowering the Chi by 2.
The same goes for the Scorpion personality trying to raise her force at the cost of her chi.
The rules however, contradict me saying that:
To get a stat's current value at any given time, do steps A through C, below:
A: Apply all current bonuses and penalties.
B: If the total is below 0, treat it as 0. (Does not apply to Family Honor, Honor Requirements, and stats with a + or – sign such as an Item’s Force and Chi stats.)
C: If the total is less than a minimum or more than a maximum, treat it as the minimum or maximu
And then because of the Good Faith Rule you would know that you cannot pay the cost. But by Blind Card rule your action card doesn't "know" about the armour.
All that being said, page 30 of the core rulebook says under Costs:
...And, if a Personality has a Chi of 4 and a minimum Chi of 1, you can't use him to Pay the cost of giving him -4C, because the Chi penalty doesn't happen fully
However the argument against me currently is that the 1 chi minimum is only because your action would not be allowed to kill the personality who would then be unable to perform it, but I do not believe that is the case.
I think that in this situation the same applies, the personality has a Chi of X and a minimum Chi of 5 and therefore you cannot play any cards that would lower their Chi unless X > 5 by the amount attempting to lower it by.
If I could please get a ruling on this I would be greatly appreciative.