Hashi no Oni question

L5R CCG Rules board, 31 July 2008 to 1 August 2008

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, 31 July 2008

I've seen two wordings of Hashi no Oni and I need to know which is correct:

After engaging in a battle at this province: Destroy one of your Personalities or Followers at the current battlefield. The Attacker targets and destroys a Personality or Follower in his current army.

or

After engaging in a battle at this province: Destroy one of your Personalities or Followers at the current battlefield: The Attacker targets and destroys a Personality or Follower in his current army.

Yeah, it's the difference of a semi-colon. The first wording would imply you don't need to have anyone at the battlefield to use it. The second wording implys the destruction is a cost. So which is it?

Also, can you use Hashi no Oni more than once per turn? The card's text is not an ability, so it doesn't have the built in one time use restriction. On the other hand a legalistic reading of the card would indicate you can't and my inclination is to say no. So what's the official verdict?

(The rules wiki and the post I've seen on the forums so far have not settled these issues)

Thanks, Kevin

Alex Jones (rules official), 1 August 2008

I've seen two wordings of Hashi no Oni and I need to know which is correct:

After engaging in a battle at this province: Destroy one of your Personalities or Followers at the current battlefield. The Attacker targets and destroys a Personality or Follower in his current army.

or

After engaging in a battle at this province: Destroy one of your Personalities or Followers at the current battlefield: The Attacker targets and destroys a Personality or Follower in his current army.

Yeah, it's the difference of a semi-colon. The first wording would imply you don't need to have anyone at the battlefield to use it. The second wording implys the destruction is a cost. So which is it?

Also, can you use Hashi no Oni more than once per turn? The card's text is not an ability, so it doesn't have the built in one time use restriction. On the other hand a legalistic reading of the card would indicate you can't and my inclination is to say no. So what's the official verdict?

(The rules wiki and the post I've seen on the forums so far have not settled these issues)

Thanks, Kevin

I have the card here, it says:

After engaging in a battle at this province: Destroy one of your Personalities or Followers at the current battlefield. The Attacker targets and destroys a Personality or Follower in his current army.

That is, there is no second colon. The destruction of the Hashi no Oni's controller's Personality or Follower is not a cost, so the destruction of the Attacker's (or an attacking ally's) Personality or Follower is not dependent on the first destruction.

Moreover (and to answer the second question) as a trait, it triggers exactly once for each battle at this province. If the Defender has any units at the battlefield, he must destroy a Personality or Follower he controls there regardless of whether the Attacker has any units there. If the Attacker has any units at the battlefield, he must destroy a Personality or Follower in his army there regardless of whether the Defender has any units there.

Zen Faulkes (rules official), 1 August 2008

I've seen two wordings of Hashi no Oni

Where are these two conflicting wordings? I ask because if one is someone official (rules wiki, etc.), I can fix it.

For those playing along at home: there is no substitute for the actual card. I'm amazed by the number of times we've been asked, "Which wording is correct?" when people have read the actual, printed card.

I hate to break the bad news, but... the Internet can be wrong.