Kharma in Death and Battle Resolution

L5R CCG Rules board, 4 October 2007

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, 4 October 2007

I am curious if Kharma in Death can be used by a defending Dragon player to lower an attacking personality's force during Battle Resolution to save a province after an existing defender(s) are simultaneously destroyed. The rules of Presence and Location do not restrict Reactions taken during a battle and the wiki says that players check whether a province is destroyed after the defending units are destroyed by the attacking army winning. Is this reaction legal to take and can this affect the outcome by lowering an attacking unit's force to zero potentially saving the province from destruction?

Kharma in Death: Reaction: After one of your Personalities is destroyed during battle: Target a Personality in the current enemy army with equal or less Chi. The target can not perform actions. Set his Force to 0 if you are a Dragon Clan player.

Rules Wiki for Battles: Follow one of the procedures under this heading, in order, depending on the battle’s outcome.

If the Attacker Wins: 1.The Attacker simultaneously destroys all cards in the defending army. This is an effect of battle resolution. 2.If his force exceeds the defending army’s Force plus the Province Strength of the province the current battlefield is associated with, he destroys the province. This is an effect of battle resolution. 3.The Attacker gains Honor from resolution equal to twice the number of cards in the defending army that were destroyed by the effects of resolution. Before the Attacker gains 1 or more points of Honor from resolution, if the attacking army contains one or more dishonorable Personalities, these Personalities are all restored to honorable status, and the Honor gain from resolution is negated.

Chris Fuchs (rules official), 4 October 2007

A. Compare the total Force of each army. Whichever army has the most Force wins (see Force total). A side with no units has zero force for purposes of this comparison, and does not count as an army for effects that alter the force of an “army”.

which is right above what you quoted.

It is legal to take that reaction during battle resolution, but it will have no effect on the calculated force totals.