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, 28 August 2008
soul of battle reads: Battle: Destroy one of your opposed target Tacticians or Deathseekers in the current battlefield: Gain 3 Honor. The next action the enemy leader announces this battle has the additional cost "Bow one of your Personalities at the current battlefield."
i ask: if the enemy leader have no UNBOWED units at the current battlefield when i played soul of battle, can he perform more actions ?
see, what happen is, he had one personality bowed an try to use a refugees, and as he cant pay the cost he can use refugees or not ?
thanks
A player, 28 August 2008
if the enemy leader have no UNBOWED units at the current battlefield when i played soul of battle, can he perform more actions ?
Aside: players do not perform actions in Samurai edition. Generally speaking no, the enemy leader can no longer announce any action during this battle because it is unlikely that he can pay its additional mandatory cost of bowing one of his Personalities at the current battlefield due to Soul of Battle's effect.
what happen is, he had one personality bowed an try to use a refugees, and as he cant pay the cost he can use refugees or not ?
No, unless he can find a way to straighten one of his Personalities at the current battlefield, after announcing the action and before paying the additional cost cost. For example let's imagine the enemy leader's unbowed Stronghold is Kyuden Asako, he also controls an unbowed Gold-producing Temple and he wants to target one of his Shugenja Personalities at the current battlefield with Refugees. He announces it in good faith, the action gains an additional cost due to Soul of Battle, he targets his Shugenja, he overpays the first cost (the Gold cost of zero Gold) by bowing its Temple, Kyuden Asako's Reaction straightens his Shugenja, then he pays the additional cost by bowing his Shugenja, then Refugees resolves. As you can read, it takes a lot of efforts from the enemy leader to play an action legally when all units in his army are bowed.
See also: "Soul of Battle and Bowing Negation" and "Soul of Battle vs. Bowed army".