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, 24 May 2011
I know there are a lot of threads regarding Shinjo's Guidance and other redirection effects (such as Chugo Seido) redirecting to illegal targets. The replies that I have read do not seem to agree on whether it is legal to take such an action when there are no legal targets or if the action is legal but has no effect.
For example: I my opponent tries to use a ranged attack against one of my unicorn personalities without followers. I react with Shinjo's Guidance but all my other personalities at that location have followers (so there are no legal targets for the ranged attack).
Am I allowed to take this action knowing that the effect will fail, is it somehow illegal because I'm messing with targeting, or is there some other option I have not considered?
Zen Faulkes (rules official), 24 May 2011
I know there are a lot of threads regarding Shinjo's Guidance and other redirection effects (such as Chugo Seido) redirecting to illegal targets. The replies that I have read do not seem to agree on whether it is legal to take such an action when there are no legal targets or if the action is legal but has no effect.
For example: I my opponent tries to use a ranged attack against one of my unicorn personalities without followers. I react with Shinjo's Guidance but all my other personalities at that location have followers (so there are no legal targets for the ranged attack).
Am I allowed to take this action knowing that the effect will fail, is it somehow illegal because I'm messing with targeting, or is there some other option I have not considered?
It is likely that the variation is because the individual cards are worded differently. There are no general rules an "redirection" - those were killed several editions ago.
As for Shinjo's Guidance, I found only two relevant rulings, both of which say the same thing: The action is legal to take, even if it has no effect.
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=81737 viewtopic.php?f=59&t=86267
I take the opportunity to mention this: http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Effects#Substitution: "In effects that substitute targeting, if the new target has to be a 'legal' target, then failure to find a new legal target means the original targeting happens normally."