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.
I've used the search engine and I'm actually surprised that this hasn't come up yet...
I am attacking with a three force tactician Samurai without any followers in the unit. My opponent plays Three Stone River. I play Determination and then use the tactical ability to discard a card to raise my personalities force by the focus value, lets say four. Assuming we both pass after this, will my samurai's force be 1, 5 or 7 at battle resolution?
Thank you
I've used the search engine and I'm actually surprised that this hasn't come up yet...
I am attacking with a three force tactician Samurai without any followers in the unit. My opponent plays Three Stone River. I play Determination and then use the tactical ability to discard a card to raise my personalities force by the focus value, lets say four. Assuming we both pass after this, will my samurai's force be 1, 5 or 7 at battle resolution?
Thank you
Your Samurai's Force would be 1.
The effect of Three-Stone River is to set your Personality's Force to a value (1, in your example) by giving it a penalty.
http://rules.l5r.com/Card_features#General_rules_about_stats: (Emphasis mine) "Bonuses and penalties are commonly referred to by a mathematical expression such as +1F or -1 Personal Honor. The terms “gain,” “increase” and “give” for bonuses, and “lose,” “reduce” or “suffer” for penalties, are also used..." (and also pertinent is) "...To set a stat to a value, give an appropriate bonus or penalty."
Determination stops negation of the Tactical Force bonus, but receiving a penalty is not synonymous with negating a bonus. Indeed, the bonus is actually still there, but math is working against it, as seen here (from further down in the above linked section of the CR):
"To get a stat's current value at any given time, do steps A through C, below:
A: Apply all current bonuses and penalties. B: If the total is below 0, treat it as 0. (Does not apply to Family Honor, Honor Requirements, and stats with a + or – sign such as an Item’s Force and Chi stats.) C: If the total is less than a minimum or more than a maximum, treat it as the minimum or maximum."