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, 3 March 2008
What would happen if after I play Hidden Scandal the other player somehow makes me lose 5 honor, and then plays Assigning Blame on me? Do I lose any more honor? Why or why not?
Hidden Scandal
Political Open: From now until the turn ends, a target player cannot gain more than 5 points of Honor in total from his own card effects, and cannot lose more than 5 points of Honor in total from other players' card effects.
Assigning Blame
Political Reaction: After one of your Personalities is destroyed, if you control a Courtier: Dishonor a target Personality. His controller loses 3 Honor; this loss can be negated but not reduced.
Alex Jones (rules official), 13 March 2008
What would happen if after I play Hidden Scandal the other player somehow makes me lose 5 honor, and then plays Assigning Blame on me? Do I lose any more honor? Why or why not?
See "Cannot".
"Cannot lose more than 5 points of honour" is read as "honour losses in excess of 5 points are negated". Negation is allowed by Assigning Blame, so you would lose 0 honour. However, reduction is not allowed, so if you had only lost 4 honour before Assigning Blame you would still lose the full 3 honour.
Roger Giner-Sorolla (rules official), 13 March 2008
Take this ruling a bit lightly for now, we're discussing the issue in our skull-shaped Rules Team Lair.
A player, 27 July 2008
Hi. I thought that it is easy question and could be quickly confirmed in Rules, but after seeing one paragraph in Comprehensive Rules i am rather confused...
Darling of the Season (event) Until the end of the game, each player cannot lose more than 5 points of Honor in total from other players' cards in a single turn.
Assigning Blame (action) Political Reaction: After one of your Personalities is destroyed, if you control a Courtier: Dishonor a target Personality. His controller loses 3 Honor; this loss can be negated but not reduced.
Relevant text underlined (above).
Rules, glossary Cannot - If a bonus or penalty to a stat, or a stat itself, “cannot” be raised or lowered beyond a certain value, this does not necessarily negate the whole change; only the part that would take the stat beyond that value. Raise/Rise - The phrase “cannot raise/can not rise” negates all bonus or gain beyond a certain number, but does not negate gain up to and including that number.
And now - Darling of the Season resolved some time ago, it is my turn, no honor gains or loses, and I am receiving three Assigning Blames (AB for short). How much honor should I lose ?
a) 9 (3+3+3), because Assigning Blame honor loss could not be reduced b) 8 (3+2+3), because 1/3 of honor loss from one AB is negated, and then hits the whole third one c) 5 (3+2+0), because 1/3 of honor loss from one AB is negated and then negated is whole last AB d) 3 (3+0+0), because after first AB hits there is not enough room for second.
At first glance at the rules glossary, seems to me that c) is the correct answer, but this means that there's something like "negate part of change in numbers and no this is not reduction".
Puzzled - S.
Alex Jones (rules official), 28 July 2008
Hi. I thought that it is easy question and could be quickly confirmed in Rules, but after seeing one paragraph in Comprehensive Rules i am rather confused...
Darling of the Season (event) Until the end of the game, each player cannot lose more than 5 points of Honor in total from other players' cards in a single turn.
Assigning Blame (action) Political Reaction: After one of your Personalities is destroyed, if you control a Courtier: Dishonor a target Personality. His controller loses 3 Honor; this loss can be negated but not reduced.
Relevant text underlined (above).
Rules, glossary Cannot - If a bonus or penalty to a stat, or a stat itself, “cannot” be raised or lowered beyond a certain value, this does not necessarily negate the whole change; only the part that would take the stat beyond that value. Raise/Rise - The phrase “cannot raise/can not rise” negates all bonus or gain beyond a certain number, but does not negate gain up to and including that number.
And now - Darling of the Season resolved some time ago, it is my turn, no honor gains or loses, and I am receiving three Assigning Blames (AB for short). How much honor should I lose ?
a) 9 (3+3+3), because Assigning Blame honor loss could not be reduced b) 8 (3+2+3), because 1/3 of honor loss from one AB is negated, and then hits the whole third one c) 5 (3+2+0), because 1/3 of honor loss from one AB is negated and then negated is whole last AB d) 3 (3+0+0), because after first AB hits there is not enough room for second.
At first glance at the rules glossary, seems to me that c) is the correct answer, but this means that there's something like "negate part of change in numbers and no this is not reduction".
Puzzled - S.
The result of the discussion was that the Reduce was added to the Glossary: Effects that "reduce" some number only include effects that work by directly changing the number of something. Such effects are considered to be reduction, and not negation, even if they happen to reduce the number in question to zero. Alterations due to maximums or minimums, and due to partial negation (such as from "cannot rise/fall" limits), do not count as reduction.
This means that once the player has lost five honour, any further honour losses are negated or partially negated, so the "can not be reduced" text on Assigning Blame is not relevant.