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 March 2008
For this situation I am playing out of the Maw's Grave and I have 3 total cards in my hand with 1 of them being Brute Force.
I have a Wareta no Oni opposed by a 5 force personality. Wareta would at this point be 12 base force, +1 from the stronghold, and -3 from my hand size giving him 10 current force. If I then play my copy of Brute Force targeting my Wareta against their 5 force personality is the opposing personality bowed or destroyed?
That is to ask when playing the copy of Brute Force would the physical copy of the card exit my hand and immediately change Wareta's force to 11 thus destroying the opposing personality, or does everything on the card get checked prior to it leaving my hand thus bowing the opposing personality?
Doruk Özaydın (rules official), 4 March 2008
That is to ask when playing the copy of Brute Force would the physical copy of the card exit my hand and immediately change Wareta's force to 11 thus destroying the opposing personality, or does everything on the card get checked prior to it leaving my hand thus bowing the opposing personality?
Per Resolution and entering-play areas, "When taking an action on an Action card, resolving the effects of an Event, or checking conditions and costs of a card entering play, the card in question exists in a special temporary area; face-up but out of play" which means that when you resolve the effect of "[Destroying] the enemy Personality if your Personality has more than twice his Force" Wareta no Oni has 11 force as the card is no longer in your hand but in the resolution area.