When a player announces the action on Twin Soul Temple, when do they also announce their intention to either pay or not pay the cost of bowing one of their shugenja? When do you choose which shugenja they will bow, assuming this choice is not made at the same of choosing to bow a shugenja?
Twin Soul Temple
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.
When a player announces the action on Twin Soul Temple, when do they also announce their intention to either pay or not pay the cost of bowing one of their shugenja? When do you choose which shugenja they will bow, assuming this choice is not made at the same of choosing to bow a shugenja?
The order of taking an action is A. Announce the action B. Explicit performing and required targeting C. Pay costs D. Action resolution E. Action ends
The performing Samurai and then the target are chosen in step B, but you do not need to declare if you wish to bow a Shugenja until step C, since the Shugenja is not targeted and, hence, not a performer of the action. Thus, if your opponent reacts to the targeting such that the target's force is increased, you will know about any changes when you decide whether to bow a Shugenja. However, if the target's force is increased by a Reaction to "before an action resolves", it's too late to change your choice of shugenja - offhand, I can't think of any such effects in CE, though.
Note that the only constraints on the targeting are "an enemy Follower or Personality without Followers": the stats of the various cards involved are not checked until step D.
On: Twin Soul Temple