L5R CCG Rules board, 1 September 2009 to 2 September 2009
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, 1 September 2009
Q: When playing Ruthless Advance, Can Family Keep produce 3Gold? (I think its a yes, but I want to be sure. Ruthless is a variable Gold cost while Family Keep says Base Gold cost.( Ex. 8GPersonality with Fubatsu Blade, making it a 12GC[10 to ruthless])
References:
Ruthless Advance: Battle: Pay Gold equal to the targeted unit's total Gold Cost minus 2: Destroy a target defending unit. Gold *
Family Keep: Castle Bow this card: Produce 2 Gold, or 3 Gold if paying for a card with a base Gold Cost of 9 or more. Open: If it is not your turn, you have only one Province, and you have one or zero cards in your hand: Draw a card.
Thank you for your answers!
Alex Jones (rules official), 1 September 2009
Q: When playing Ruthless Advance, Can Family Keep produce 3Gold? (I think its a yes, but I want to be sure. Ruthless is a variable Gold cost while Family Keep says Base Gold cost.( Ex. 8GPersonality with Fubatsu Blade, making it a 12GC[10 to ruthless])
References:
Ruthless Advance: Battle: Pay Gold equal to the targeted unit's total Gold Cost minus 2: Destroy a target defending unit. Gold *
Family Keep: Castle Bow this card: Produce 2 Gold, or 3 Gold if paying for a card with a base Gold Cost of 9 or more. Open: If it is not your turn, you have only one Province, and you have one or zero cards in your hand: Draw a card.
Thank you for your answers!
Yes.
Strategy cards: Gold Cost: a Strategy card's Gold Cost is part of the base costs of each of its abilities. The number in the coin is not a separate cost of playing the Strategy card.
Asterisks: An asterisk (*) appearing instead of a stat on a card means that the stat has no base value, but is determined according to other circumstances. This also means that the stat is variable. If such a value cannot be determined at any given time, its base value is zero.
When playing a Strategy, you must pay the Gold Cost of the Strategy (which is one of the costs of the action). The base cost of Ruthless Advance is variable, but when you are paying its cost this value is known, and if it's 9 or more, a Family Keep will produce 3g towards it.
Family Keep will pay 3 gold for a card with a BASE gold cost of 9 or more per its wording.
Asterisks: An asterisk (*) appearing instead of a stat on a card means that the stat has no base value, but is determined according to other circumstances. This also means that the stat is variable. If such a value cannot be determined at any given time, its base value is zero.
Ruthless Advance has an asterisk for its gold cost. This means the BASE gold cost is null, and is not determined when played. Regardless of what Ruthless is targeting, Family Keep should only produce two gold.
Base "Base" refers to a stat, keyword, ability, or trait that exists on a card or other entity as printed (following the most recent printing) or initially created, without modifications from effects. A stat’s base value can not be changed.
Alex Jones (rules official), 2 September 2009
Regarding this ruling:
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=78820
Family Keep will pay 3 gold for a card with a BASE gold cost of 9 or more per its wording.
Asterisks: An asterisk (*) appearing instead of a stat on a card means that the stat has no base value, but is determined according to other circumstances. This also means that the stat is variable. If such a value cannot be determined at any given time, its base value is zero.
Ruthless Advance has an asterisk for its gold cost. This means the BASE gold cost is null, and is not determined when played. Regardless of what Ruthless is targeting, Family Keep should only produce two gold.
Base "Base" refers to a stat, keyword, ability, or trait that exists on a card or other entity as printed (following the most recent printing) or initially created, without modifications from effects. A stat’s base value can not be changed.
Arguably, the quoted paragraph is contradictory: the first sentence says that an asterisk means that the stat has no base value, which could reasonably imply that the base value is zero; the last sentence implies that if the value can be determined, its base value is non-zero, since if the base value were always zero then the rule should state that.
I decided that the second interpretation is more consistent with the concept of showing the base value with an asterisk rather than as 0.
Asterisks: An asterisk (*) appearing instead of a stat on a card means that the stat has no base value, but is determined according to other circumstances. This also means that the stat is variable. If such a value cannot be determined at any given time, its base value is zero.
How can Family Keep check a base gold cost of 0, according to the highlighted area of the rules, and find a non-zero number? Ruthless advanced only has a gold cost for a temporary amount of time, thus after the action is resolved, its gold cost is back to an Asterisk which cannot be determined as a gold cost of any particular amount. Therefore, its base gold cost has to be 0 according to the rule highlighted.
Alex Jones (rules official), 2 September 2009
In reguards to this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=78820
Asterisks: An asterisk (*) appearing instead of a stat on a card means that the stat has no base value, but is determined according to other circumstances. This also means that the stat is variable. If such a value cannot be determined at any given time, its base value is zero.
How can Family Keep check a base gold cost of 0, according to the highlighted area of the rules, and find a non-zero number? Ruthless advanced only has a gold cost for a temporary amount of time, thus after the action is resolved, its gold cost is back to an Asterisk which cannot be determined as a gold cost of any particular amount. Therefore, its base gold cost has to be 0 according to the rule highlighted.
And while the action is being taken, it has a well-defined non-zero cost.
In regards to this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=78820&view=unread#unread
While the gold cost HAS a value while the card is being played, the gold cost is not the BASE gold cost. From the definition of Base, as already quoted:
"Base" refers to a stat, keyword, ability, or trait that exists on a card or other entity as printed (following the most recent printing) or initially created, without modifications from effects. A stat’s base value can not be changed.
For Family Keep to produce 3 gold, the base gold cost must be a value of 9 or more. This means that there are several things it should check, to determine if the cost is a base gold cost. They are (per the rulebook definition of base):
A) the printed/initial value B) Without modifications from effects C) Cannot be changed.
The printed/initial value of Ruthless Advance is an asterisk, which by rulebook definition, means it has NO BASE VALUE. Ruthless does not meet this condition.
The gold cost is modified depending on target, but that isn't really from an effect, so Ruthless is probably ok here.
The gold cost of Ruthless changes, so that's out to.
Based on the rulebook definition of Base, there are three things that determine a base value. Ruthless fails to meet two of those three. How can Family Keep produce three gold instead of two for Ruthless Advance?
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 2 September 2009
In regards to this: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=78820&view=unread#unread
While the gold cost HAS a value while the card is being played, the gold cost is not the BASE gold cost. From the definition of Base, as already quoted:
"Base" refers to a stat, keyword, ability, or trait that exists on a card or other entity as printed (following the most recent printing) or initially created, without modifications from effects. A stat’s base value can not be changed.
For Family Keep to produce 3 gold, the base gold cost must be a value of 9 or more. This means that there are several things it should check, to determine if the cost is a base gold cost. They are (per the rulebook definition of base):
A) the printed/initial value B) Without modifications from effects C) Cannot be changed.
The printed/initial value of Ruthless Advance is an asterisk, which by rulebook definition, means it has NO BASE VALUE. Ruthless does not meet this condition.
The gold cost is modified depending on target, but that isn't really from an effect, so Ruthless is probably ok here.
The gold cost of Ruthless changes, so that's out to.
Based on the rulebook definition of Base, there are three things that determine a base value. Ruthless fails to meet two of those three. How can Family Keep produce three gold instead of two for Ruthless Advance?
It's been pointed out that the previous posts are all operating on an incorrect assumption.
The asterisk gold cost on Ruthless Advance is a cost for its action, not the strategy card.
http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Card_types#Strategy_cards: "Gold Cost: a Strategy card's Gold Cost is part of the base costs of each of its abilities. The number in the coin is not a separate cost of playing the Strategy card." (Emphasis added.)
Family Keep can't be used in any case. It pays card costs, not action costs.
The base cost issue will be tidied up, but at least the initial question is put to bed.
The answer is such that one might infer that Strategies do not have card gold costs. That's not how I read the rules and I'm guessing it's not what's intended, so for the sake of clarification:
While Strategy cards do have card costs, they just work a bit differently than other card costs in that you don't pay them to play the card, you only pay them to use the action on the card. Correct?
So expanding from Zen's answer, Family Keep will never pay 3 gold for a Strategy card regardless of base gold cost (since it only pays extra to play a card), right? E.G. Family Keep will only produce 2 when paying for the action on Fury of the Dark Lord despite Fury's base cost of 15?
On the flipside, an effect that reduces the card cost of a Strategy would also reduce the cost of taking one of its actions? (Sorry about the hypothetical, can't think of a good example at the moment.)
And finally the Strategy still has a card gold cost, so (dipping back an edition), if Storm's Eye Style (which checks card gold cost) and Fury of the Dark Lord were focused together, Storm's Eye would get it's extra 3 focus value, right?
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 2 September 2009
I'm guessing it's not what's intended...
Sadly, most players telepathy does not work that well, so we have to work with what is in the Comprehensive Rules.
This part of the rules -- "The number in the coin is not a separate cost of playing the Strategy card" -- indicates that is not the case.
As indicated above, the issue of variable gold costs on strategies and such is very likely to get a clean-up and possibly a slight revision. Please hold off on questions arising from that for a while and give us a little time to sort it out. Thank you for your patience.