Rulings for 1-2 April 2001

Call To Arms & Forced March ?

Can a personality who remains bowed by forced march be unbowed by call to arms?

I got beat to this one by a number of folk, but, yes, Forced March only prohibits straightening in your own next Straighten Phase, so Call to Arms will still straighten them.

Rules Questions

I didn't know which rules were relevant or applicable to overlaying personalties, can anyone please point me the right way?

How does overlaying affect permanent effects on personality's stats?

Spirit Wars rulebook, page 35: "The later version keeps the earlier one's attached cards, tokens, abilities, bowed or unbowed status, and permanent changes."

Like does a person coming out of Plains Above Evil or paid for by Corrupt Dojos carry over the stat bonus/penalty to the Exp. versions since they're permanent effects?

Yes.

Example: peep is 2/2 and his exp. version is 5/5

1) peep comes out of Plains Above Evil then overlays with Exp. version is he 5/5 or 6/6?

6/6.

2) normal 2/2 peep is overlayed with Exp. version which popped out of a Plains above Evil.

5/5. Overlaying is not considered bringing a card into play.

3) peep comes out of Plains Above Evil then Exp. also comes out of Plains Above Evil.

6/6.

Can I Snow Crane tattoo for these combo effects?: a Bend Like a Reed? (for +4 total)

No. Since it's not focussed, Bend Like a Reed is never revealed, so there's nothing to react to.

Yoshi Exp. focus?

Yes.

Strike of Flowing Water focus-copy? (last focus value +2? or do I add SoFW's 3F too?)

Strike of Flowing Water doesn't copy, it doubles, but, yes, you can use the Snow Crane Tattoo on the doubled card and raise it by an additional 2 (not 4).

Chi Strike/Smoke and Mirrors (destroy enemy focus and +2 for me)

Yes and yes.

together with Half-beat Strike?

Yes.

Question for you guys...

I think Archetypes should have the same trait and wording as Bayushi Hisa:

"Counts as Hisa for the purposes of deck construction."

That's basically what it's going to be, yes.

Hopefully only the handful of gold edition personalities will be archetypes in the first place, so there is no need to make a new trait out of it.

As the saying goes in the CCG industry, "real estate is expensive". Three words fit on a card far easier than an entire sentence does, especially when they're being added to an existing card which may very well have a highly verbose ability already or need space for flavor text that's crucial to the story. Planning to use the whole sentence and then running into one single card where it won't fit would be Bad.

Question for you guys...

Incidentally...

I hope whoever picks up L5R gets it into their head that archetypes are unpopular and the personalities in the expansions should be new personalities.

The Personalities in the expansions will be new, as they always have.

The problem with Gold is that it's a base set, and base sets DON'T have new Personalities. Releasing six to nine new Personalities for every Gold- legal Clan that have different names but identical (or off-by-one) stats to existing ones would do bad things to the Open environment. On the other hand, reprinting staples like Otaku Kamoko or Mirumoto Hitomi verbatim would create obvious storyline confusion. Archetypes have neither of these problems.

Fortress of the Dragonfly + Force of Will

How does these two cards interact?

- If I have a dishonored personality and Force of Will targets it, does it die or it gets the Fortress bonuss?

He dies. Basically, you apply global benefits once, and normally first. This is very similar to asking if my NSS, when he copies someone's Chi and I have a Fortress in play, if I have <Chi> or <Chi+1>. I believe the general rule is that, if one of your statistics (Force, Chi, Personal Honor, etc.) is changed _to_ a number, any continuous effects on that number are overridden.

Same would apply to someone having a Weapon attached that gave +1 Chi. A 'flowchart' of such would be as follows:

1) Card 'asks', "What is my Chi?" 2) The rules 'answer', "Well, you have 3Chi printed, +2 from this weapon, and +1 from the Fortress, for a total of 6Chi. You have 6Chi." 3) The rules then 'state', "You were just targeted by Force of Will. Change your Chi (6) and your Personal Honor (0). Oops, looks like you die from having 0 Chi."

If my guy had 4 chi (3+1) and 0ph, does it change to 0 chi or to 1 Chi for the Fortress Bonus?

0Chi.

- One more. How about a card which exchange Force for Chi? How does it work with FotD in play?

In the same vein. Let's say you're playing Kyuden Kitsune (+1Chi to all of your shugenja), you have a Fortress in play, and you have a Ryosei in play. Let's further say you play Within Your Soul on Ryosei, which will switch her Force and Chi. QUery and response, again as follows:

1) Within Your Soul 'queries' Ryosei, "What is your Force, and what is your Chi?" 2) The Ryosei card 'responds', "Well, my Force is only 1, but my Chi is printed 3, +1 for Kyuden Kitsune, +1 for Fortress of the Dragonfly, for a total of 5 Chi." 3) Within Your Soul 'states', "Okay, Ryosei, switch them." 4) Ryosei 'answers', "Yes, sir. My Force is now 5, and my Chi is now 1."

Scott, you're right on the money. (Quick question, though... how long have your cards been talking? Are you borrowing Vaughn's?)

3-D Strongholds Update.

I have recently been contacted by Andrew Heckt, and learned a few things. Copyright law in the U.S. says that it is alright for me to make the 3-D strongholds, and even alright to trade them, but I am not allowed to sell them. I had known about that, but had heard that Wizards had issued a blanket allowance for copies of 3-D strongholds. This was incorrect.

Note: Copyright states that you cannot photocopy these and sell them. You can take originals and do with them as you please. You can trade photocopies (as I understand matters).

Copyright states that you cannot legally reproduce them in any way, for any reason, without the consent of the current copyright holder. You have no *right* to *copy*. Check out http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html .