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.
in a recent tournament we had a few doubts about this card. follow this example:
some player has reached -18 family honor. He then attacks to the last province of his opponent, who assigns a courtier to defend. during battle resolution, in which the attacking player would break his opponent's last province, the opponent uses Assigning Blame.
1. What is the exact chain of effects? Who would win?
2. Can I seppuku the personality dishonored by Assigning Blame to reduce the loss?
in a recent tournament we had a few doubts about this card. follow this example:
some player has reached -18 family honor. He then attacks to the last province of his opponent, who assigns a courtier to defend. during battle resolution, in which the attacking player would break his opponent's last province, the opponent uses Assigning Blame.
1. What is the exact chain of effects? Who would win?
2. Can I seppuku the personality dishonored by Assigning Blame to reduce the loss?
The order of the effects on Battle Resolution is outlined here.
What's relevant here is that the Defending army including the Courtier gets destroyed at a distinct timing step that comes before the last Province is destroyed.
Shorthand sequence for this particular resolution: 1.) Destroy Defending Army 2.) Destroy Province [game ends]
So the player's Courtier dies, and he starts Assigning Blame as a Reaction. That will resolve before he loses his last Province, so it'll eliminate you due to Dishonor.
However, you mentioned Seppuku. You could apply Seppuku if the action targets one of your Samurai or Courtier personalities. However, Seppuku says, "reduce the Honor loss to one" while Assigning Blame says, "His controller loses 3 Honor; this loss can be negated but not reduced." That whole "can be negated but not reduced," clause will prevent you from reducing the lose with seppuku. So while you can order your Blamed personality to die with honor, it won't keep you from losing.
Hey, but at least your loyal vassal cleanses his honor, right?