Rulings for 29 March 2001

Kuwanan exp2

Since Kuwanan doesn't bow to use his reaction, cancelling it has no effect as he can promptly repeat his reaction, true?

The rules say that "you cannot use a Reaction on a single copy of a card more than once per trigger". However, cancelling has been ruled to work such that the cancelled action is not considered to have occured - "once per turn" actions can be reattempted - although any costs are not refunded.

So if I make a use of Tactician, which is cancelled by Kuwanan, I can cancel his reaction with, say, "The Sun Returns" [which isn't a use of Tactician, so Kuwanan can't cancel it], but Kuwanan can promptly repeat his reaction as he's not considered to have used it.

That is correct.

Questions for the list and Jeff/Vaughn/etc.

My group usually plays a game of the CCG after the L5R RPG I run on Thursdays. Tonights ended up by being a 4-way that was incredibly frustrating. These are usually very entertaining games but tonights was a bit of an agravator. (Friggin Monks) :)

Some questions arouse though which I could not answer without my Archive. Since checking, I still do not have the answers I need.

1. Can an attack be declared by a player and then have no attacking units assign to any battles?

Oh, absolutely.

2. Can Seppun Toshiken exp2 (who is not in the battle) use his Reaction to kill an Ogre Outlaw to gain the 10 gold, who is in a battle where one of the Toshiken Player's personalities in the battle was killed? I ruled that he could kill the Ogre Outlaw but could not gain the 10 gold because the Ogre Outlaw was not killed due to the battle or via a duel. Was I correct?

You were not correct. The Ogre was in a battle when it was killed. If the Ogre's text said "killed BY a battle or duel", you would have been right.

3. If a player says he will ally, then not send any troops during the Assignment Phase, use a reaction from one of his cards to move a personality into a battle?

Players can verbally respond any way they want to an invitation to ally, including not at all. A player who's been invited to ally is free to assign or not assign as she wishes during the Maneuvers Segments (and only if she does will she gain honor for allying).

A player who's been invited to ally (and ONLY such a player) is also allowed to move units into that side of a battle during it, provided she's never had units on the other side so far this Attack Phase.

Kaiu Sensei and Unique Fortifications

Kaiu Sensei states that "During battle, the traits of all of your non-Unique Fortifications are in effect for each of your Provinces and you may use the Fortifications' abilities as if the Fortifications were at the battle's Provence". It's not clear if the Unique Fortifications' abilities may be used in every province.

They can't. The second sentence is still referring to the "all of your non-Unique Fortifications" phrase in the first.

Rulings for 23 March 2001

Btw, what happens if a player has Yuki no Onna in play? Who decides whether people go home?

Whoever controls the card that tries to send them there.

You mean the target decides, if the target controls a Yuki no Onna, don't you? If I control YnO and play a Block, why should the attacker be immune if he doesn't control a YnO?

Read what I said again, Nick. You and I are on the same page here.

Rulings for 25 March 2001

This "wanker", if such a single person truly ever existed, did nothing more than point out that this is exactly what the Soul of the Empire rulebook says on p. 37. It even uses being sent home bowed and dishonored as an example.

Exactly. A new paragraph 'appears' in the rulebook, and the wankers descend. You should have just said, "Disregard that, it was added in error. We'll let you know when we figure out if we want to change it for real."

I could not disregard it out of hand because it *was* a completely natural extension of the "all effects are separate" rule as applied by someone unbiased by past ruling conventions. Furthermore, if you're going to argue with her interpretation of the grammar, it's only fair I should point out that grammar is this woman's job. You might have the confidence to assert that she's just reading things wrong. I don't.

Even worse. Instead of a wanker forcing it on us, it came from an editor that doesn't even play the game, without being checked by the Junta or the lead designer. Yay.

The lead designer at that time was Dave. I don't know if he checked it. I've since gotten in touch with Jessica, who tells me that the example and answer came from "someone official" at the time, though she doesn't recall who.

What datum is that? Everybody I've EVER met has understood Block to be one effect. I'll show the card around to some total non-players and see what they say. Would Monica be a good test candidate?

Isn't Stan reading yet? :)

Rules Junta

More time passed until Dave started moving to other things like Seventh Sea and Warlords, so AEG hired Jeff to be the new Lead Designer of L5R.

Stop. Jeff wasn't hired by AEG.

Um...yeah. I was, and stuff. What they said.

Rules ???:O-Ushi Sensei

Oh, lovely. More HTML.

(html) (DIV) (P)Greetings,(/P) (P)I have a question regarding O-Ushi Sensei, specifically how it reacts with To Do What We Must.(/P) (P)(I don't have the cards in front of me, but just thought of this...)(/P) (P)If you are playing this sensei, and in a battle, you target one of your own personalities with TDWWM, can you add force twice? In other words, it looks at Force, plus Personal Honor (plus 2 for Crane) can you use O-Ushi to change that PH to Force?(/P)

O-Ushi Sensei only interacts with other card effects, so you can't use it this way if you're the one playing TDWWM.

Furthermore, you can't use it against your opponent's either, since TDWWM cares about total unit Force, not the Personality's own.

[Jeff,

Vaughn] Rulings Q: Inexperienced Trait Counts as a level of Experienced

I still have a question about the Inexperienced trait.

The rulebook indicates that Inexperienced trait is a part of the set of traits "Experienced".

"Inexperienced" is part of the sequence, just like "not- Experienced-at-all", but that only matters with cards that care about the relative experience level difference between two cards. A card is only an "Experienced" card if it has that trait.

This becomes a specific issue with Yoritomo Tsuyu.

Can Tsuyu offer a challenge to an Inexperienced personality?

No.

(Vaughn, Jeff) Rules Q

March of the alliance prevents use of tactician because the traits ability is defined in the rules book and not on the card correct?

Correct.

*Or* since Tactician is a trait and not really an "action" or "ability" wouldn't it be unaffected by march? (the trait is used as an action in timing sense, but not an "action" or "ability" which is what march cancels)

Discarding for a Force bonus is a Battle action by pure rulebook definition. It is a Battle action which is allowed by the presence of a trait.

Does this march of alliance likewise apply to Fear effects? (since it is also defined only by the rulebook)

Not true. Fear is written as a Battle action on the cards themselves.