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, 30 June 2009
Hamstrung: Focus Effect: Lower this card's Focus Value by an amount from 0 to 4: Gain Honor equal to the amount it was lowered by.
Ring of Fire: Focus Effect: You may give this card -2 Focus Value. If you do, after the duel ends, put this card into play if you won the duel during a battle.
Changing Paths: Battle/Open: Target your unbowed Shugenja or Monk: Name a Ring. The next time this turn you would trigger its base trait that would put it into play from your hand, search your discard pile, then Fate deck, for that Ring. Show it. Put it into your hand. (You then have a chance to play it by its own text.)
Q: If you decreased the focus value, on Hamstrung, by 2, would that allow you to use Changing Paths to search and play the Ring of Fire?
[mod edit - thread title - LH]
Dan Jacobson (rules official), 30 June 2009
Hamstrung: Focus Effect: Lower this card's Focus Value by an amount from 0 to 4: Gain Honor equal to the amount it was lowered by.
Ring of Fire: Focus Effect: You may give this card -2 Focus Value. If you do, after the duel ends, put this card into play if you won the duel during a battle.
Changing Paths: Battle/Open: Target your unbowed Shugenja or Monk: Name a Ring. The next time this turn you would trigger its base trait that would put it into play from your hand, search your discard pile, then Fate deck, for that Ring. Show it. Put it into your hand. (You then have a chance to play it by its own text.)
Q: If you decreased the focus value, on Hamstrung, by 2, would that allow you to use Changing Paths to search and play the Ring of Fire?
[mod edit - thread title - LH]
The Ring of Fire's requirement (for the purposes of Changing Paths) is that you focus the Ring of Fire.
Focusing a card with a similar focus effect will not work for Changing Paths.