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, 16 September 2007
Strike of the Dragon pt1a & pt1b Strike of the Dragon pt2
(Strike of the Dragon) Kiho Battle: Bow one of your Rings and one of your target Monks: Bow one to three target Personalities opposing him, each with Force higher than his own Chi.
Taking it in sequence, without seperating the distinct parts of cost/effect sentences:
Kiho Battle: Bow one of your Rings and one of your target Monks: (singular, costs target) Bow one to three target Personalities (plural, effects target(s)) opposing him, (masculine, singular, pronoun, cost target reference) each (non-pronoun, multiple, effect target reference) with Force higher than his (masculine, singular, Ruled: effects target reference?) own Chi.
In order to find where the Rules Team are coming from, some of my local playgroup & I proposed different reasons to support the current ruling: 'Each' implies pronoun, therefore it is the last possible thing mentioned that 'his' could refer to. Unable to find anything to support this. 'His' & 'own', together, implies reference to 'each'. Again, unable to find anything that directly supports this. Removing or adding 'own' in this case does not appear to change the meaning of the text definitively, except to emphasise the alternating singular & plural references. I believe if this were the right method of parsing, then the text would say 'their own' instead of 'his own', in order to precisely specify that it is the one to three effects target(s) that are being referred to.
Which specific rules are the Rules Team are using to parse this card & work out which reference relates to each target? (if they are different to the rules I am looking at in order to understand the card, I wish to know. This was the case with Temple to Shinsei + Kyuden Asako)
Chris Fuchs (rules official), 17 September 2007
Strike of the Dragon pt1a & pt1b Strike of the Dragon pt2
(Strike of the Dragon) Kiho Battle: Bow one of your Rings and one of your target Monks: Bow one to three target Personalities opposing him, each with Force higher than his own Chi.
Taking it in sequence, without seperating the distinct parts of cost/effect sentences:
Kiho Battle: Bow one of your Rings and one of your target Monks: (singular, costs target) Bow one to three target Personalities (plural, effects target(s)) opposing him, (masculine, singular, pronoun, cost target reference) each (non-pronoun, multiple, effect target reference) with Force higher than his (masculine, singular, Ruled: effects target reference?) own Chi.
In order to find where the Rules Team are coming from, some of my local playgroup & I proposed different reasons to support the current ruling: 'Each' implies pronoun, therefore it is the last possible thing mentioned that 'his' could refer to. Unable to find anything to support this. 'His' & 'own', together, implies reference to 'each'. Again, unable to find anything that directly supports this. Removing or adding 'own' in this case does not appear to change the meaning of the text definitively, except to emphasise the alternating singular & plural references. I believe if this were the right method of parsing, then the text would say 'their own' instead of 'his own', in order to precisely specify that it is the one to three effects target(s) that are being referred to.
Which specific rules are the Rules Team are using to parse this card & work out which reference relates to each target? (if they are different to the rules I am looking at in order to understand the card, I wish to know. This was the case with Temple to Shinsei + Kyuden Asako)
The whole sentence after "one to three target personalities" defines what a legal target is. Each target must be opposing your performing personality, and each target must have force higher than his own chi, referring to the target.