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, 12 October 2007
hey
i read that you have to set all targets of an action before paying the costs of an action.
so my opponent wants to kill a 10g personality with ruthless advance. that would cost him 8g.
if i redirect the action to another target with a gold cost of for example 14g what happens if my opponent cant pay it.
the effect is negated but my opponent does not need to bow any holdings.
my opponent has to try to pay the cost of the action thus leaving him with no unbowed holdings.
or anything else because i got sth wrong for example u only have to set targets that are required to pay the costs before actually paying the costs in this case what happens to the personality i redirected the action to
greetings
thx
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 12 October 2007
hey
i read that you have to set all targets of an action before paying the costs of an action.
so my opponent wants to kill a 10g personality with ruthless advance. that would cost him 8g.
if i redirect the action to another target with a gold cost of for example 14g what happens if my opponent cant pay it.
the effect is negated but my opponent does not need to bow any holdings.
my opponent has to try to pay the cost of the action thus leaving him with no unbowed holdings.
or anything else because i got sth wrong for example u only have to set targets that are required to pay the costs before actually paying the costs in this case what happens to the personality i redirected the action to
greetings
thx
Already asked and answered here: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=61353 viewtopic.php?f=59&t=61376 viewtopic.php?f=59&t=61377
See also rulings in the wiki on Hired Killer, which works the same way: http://rules.l5r.com/Rulings_H#Hired_Killer I just copied those under the Rs for Ruthless Advance.
Additional: If you cannot pay it all, you do not have to pay anything. http://rules.l5r.com/Abilities_and_actions#C._Pay_costs. But if you can pay it all, you must, which is what the above was referring to. (Fixed.)