Obsidian Dragon (Non-Unique Personalities have a Force and Chi penalty equal to their own Personal Honor while they oppose Obsidian Dragon; this will not reduce Chi below 1) and Doomed Undertaking (Battle: Non-Shadowlands Personalities have -2F/-1C while at this battlefield.) are in play at a battlefield. The attacker has a 4chi 3ph non unique personality at home. What happens when this personality moves to the battlefield? We said that the attacker got to apply the effects in order of his choice because he was the active player, so the terrain effect was applied first and then the dragon effect was applied with the 1chi minimum. Is this the right way to handle this situation?
Obsidian Dragon and Doomed Undertaking
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.
Obsidian Dragon and Doomed Undertaking are in play at a battlefield. The attacker has a 4chi 3ph non unique personality at home. What happens when this personality moves to the battlefield?
http://rules.l5r.com/Timing#Resolving_timing_conflicts: Active player chooses order the penalties apply. In this case, the order matters.
http://rules.l5r.com/Rulings_O#Obsidian_Dragon: "Obsidian Dragon's Chi penalty will be reduced if it plus other current penalties would result in a Personality having less than 1C. This is calculated only once and will not change later."
Obsidian Dragon penalty goes first, a later penalty can drop a Personality below 1C. If it goes last, the Personality will not drop below 1C.
In regard to this thread: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=75730
In the answer, it links to "Resolving Timing Conflicts" for the rules justification, but doesn't that section only deal with triggered traits, reactions, delayed effects, and indefinite conditional effects? Obsidian Dragon's trait and Doomed Undertaking's effect are continuous effects with conditions. I agree that the rules SEEM to imply that when two things want to happen at the same time, the active player chooses the order, but the rules in that section only give the active player that option when dealing with simultaneous triggers, and here there is no trigger.
So, I think the rules need to have an addition, something like: "When multiple continuous effects would begin to apply at the same time, the active player may choose the order in which to apply them. "
If you feel that the rules actually do already cover this, I am curious to know what language in the rules permits it (its very possible I'm missing something).
Thanks for helping me understand!
This has already been covered in: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=75603
They are NOT both continuous effects. Only the O Dragon is. Obsidian Dragon is a blanket penalty that constantly checks and rechecks. Doomed Undertaking is an instantaneous effect (like Unfamiliar Ground) and applies immediately, ending at the end of turn. Making someone Shadowlands after the terrain effects begin changes nothing.
Also, I don't see an argument for a timing conflict. There is no conflict. There are two possible scenarios: Dragon started there, Doomed Undertaking is played. In this case, Dragon's penalty is on already. Then something else (the terrain happens). Hey look, 2 things didn't try to happen at the same time. Active player decides nothing.
Doomed Undertaking is on, Dragon moves in. Again, not two things going on, just one at a time. However in this case, the dragon won't take anyone to 0 because he limits his own chi loss (the minimum 1 applies). Again, active player decides nothing.
This has already been covered in: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=75603
They are NOT both continuous effects. Only the O Dragon is. Obsidian Dragon is a blanket penalty that constantly checks and rechecks. Doomed Undertaking is an instantaneous effect (like Unfamiliar Ground) and applies immediately, ending at the end of turn. Making someone Shadowlands after the terrain effects begin changes nothing.
Also, I don't see an argument for a timing conflict. There is no conflict. There are two possible scenarios: Dragon started there, Doomed Undertaking is played. In this case, Dragon's penalty is on already. Then something else (the terrain happens). Hey look, 2 things didn't try to happen at the same time. Active player decides nothing.
Doomed Undertaking is on, Dragon moves in. Again, not two things going on, just one at a time. However in this case, the dragon won't take anyone to 0 because he limits his own chi loss (the minimum 1 applies). Again, active player decides nothing.
See http://rules.l5r.com/Timing
The Obsidian Dragon and Doomed Undertaking both have a "conditional continuous trait": 3. Effects of conditional continuous traits, if the triggering occurrence means that their condition becomes true, begin at the "when" point. Effects of such traits that no longer apply because their condition is now false, also end at the "when" point. See Duration of effects. Example: "This card has +2F while bowed." The Force bonus is gained "when" the card bows and lost "when" the card straightens.
These are resolved in step B of "Resolving Timing Conflicts": B. If the point in time is a "when" timing, continuous conditional effects that depend on the triggering occurrence take effect now.
This is missing an explicit "The active player decides the order in which more than one of these effects apply," but that is still true.
Note that there is a triggering occurrence for these effects: the Personality moving to the battlefield causes them to both start to apply.
Correction: actions do not create traits; Doomed Undertaking has an "ongoing conditional effect". However, for the purpose of resolving timing conflicts, these behave much like continuous conditional traits.
The Comprehensive Rules have been updated to reflect this.
Alex
Since the current questions regarding Obsidian Dragon and Doomed Undertaking have to do with movement, I just want to make sure that the cards interact like I think they do when people aren't moving around.
If I have the Obsidian Dragon in a battle opposing a number of non-unique personalities, all of whom have been reduced to 1 Chi via the Obsidian Dragon's ability, and I choose to play Doomed Undertaking, to the non-unique personalities opposing the Obsidian Dragon die from having 0 Chi?
Thank you.
Since the current questions regarding Obsidian Dragon and Doomed Undertaking have to do with movement, I just want to make sure that the cards interact like I think they do when people aren't moving around.
If I have the Obsidian Dragon in a battle opposing a number of non-unique personalities, all of whom have been reduced to 1 Chi via the Obsidian Dragon's ability, and I choose to play Doomed Undertaking, to the non-unique personalities opposing the Obsidian Dragon die from having 0 Chi?
Thank you.
Yes, they die.
In your non-moving scenario, there's no timing conflict between the Obs Dragon's trait and Doomed Undertaking's effect. The latter is unquestionably succeeding the former, and later penalties will drag the guys to death because:
http://rules.l5r.com/Rulings_O#Obsidian_Dragon: "Imposes a minimum on its own penalty, not to the Chi stat. This is calculated only once and will not change later."