post for 21 January 2002

Hataki, Ratlings, FAQ, etc.

This brings up an interesting question. Are the Scorpion a Great Clan?

Yes.

post for 18 January 2002

I have a question on this since it no player may gain more than 5 honor above their starting family honor on that turn, if you had a way to gain honor on the other players turn(nagori, memorial) you could still gain six on the player who used suspicions turn and 5 on your own correct?

You can gain more honor before running into the ceiling on any durn during which you suffer an early loss.

Shadowlands players are immune to honor loses or gains, that means that i could not use nagori to increase a shadowlands players honor lose from his suspicions to 2? I no the 2 honor lose would not effect him i am more intrested in wether i can use nagori on the honor lose to gain one honor myself thereby getting around his suspicions?

Their losses and gains don't happen at all, so they can't be changed or redirected.

Deeds, not words and No One Wins

Is there anything wrong with doing the following?

I could play Deeds not words during my opponents action phase and then during his battle resolution, lets say he destroyes two of my cards, I play No one wins. Thus he is stopped from gaining honor from his "gardens" and "temples" AND I stop him from the additional honor that Deeds provides, right?

Right.

post for 18 January 2002

A player who can't win an Honor Victory doesn't add his Family Honor to the team's total. That's still true if it's negative. The Crane player's Family Honor alone is added to the team, so he only has to reach 80.

Hypothetical: Players A and B are a team, playing Crane and Scorpion respectively. Player A has reached an honor total of 80, and Player B is at an honor total of -10. The Crane player turns up Return of Fu Leng. The Scorpion player gives up his right to win through honor. Which of the following happens?

A) Players A and B win on the Crane's next turn (because the Scorpion's honor is no longer a detriment to the team's honor total, since it's not possible for him to win through victory).

B) Players A and B can no longer win through an honor victory, since one of its members gave up their right to win through an honor victory.

C) Players C, D, E, F, G and H browbeat Players A and B about the head for playing a Crane/Scorpion team in a two-man tournament.

A). The rule is "Do not count the Family Honor of players who cannot currently win by Honor or who have been eliminated." I put the word "currently" in there so people wouldn't need to ask me this question. :)

Accesible Terrain Question

Take the following scenario:

I have 3x Hida Koun and 1x Hida Tenshu

I declare an attack and send Tenshu to an opposing province, the Hida Kouns do nothing. Opponent defends with sufficient force to stop Tenshu and he's killed during resolution. I play Fight til the Morning Sun (or whatever it's called) to bow the defenders.

In the next province I then play Accesible Terrain, now, can I move the Hida Kouns into that province to take it out? Or, do those players NEED to have participated in the attack sequence to some degree?

You may move them in.

Furthermore, can I say "I declare an attack"; then send no one.

Absolutely.

But in one of the provinces play Accesible Terrain?

You can do anything in that battle that you could normally do with no units there, including play Accessible.

Rules questions

How and why, the house guard says that their force is equal to their personaliteis person honor, how is that a bonus?

Because they change their current Force from the printed value (which, not being a number, is interpreted as 0) to something higher.

Hataki, mostly

Slaughter the scout makes a perfect weapon to wack Hataki's head off with. Since he still counts as moving into the battle, even if he's already there.

He does not count as moving. The ruling is NOT that it's legal to move to somewhere you already are. The rule from the rulebook is that if part of an action's effects will do nothing, the action is still legal and those effects do not happen.

Misc. Dragon Questions

I am curious about how Hoshi Eisai Experienced interacts with various things. To whit:

1) If she has an attached item giving her a Force bonus, and she uses her ability to copy the Force of another of my Personalities, does the item no longer give a Force bonus because her current Force now equals someone else's?

Her item does not raise her Force above the value she just set it to. If she loses it, though, her Force will still go down. [AOF rulebook pp. 32 & 41-42]

2) If she has Fire tokens on her, which give her +1/+1 (from, say, a Dragon Tattoo), and she uses her ability, do the Fire tokens no longer apply, for the same reason?

Correct. They do not.

3) If she has a Naga Tattoo (-1F), and she uses her ability, does the -1F no longer apply, for the same reason?

You're three for three.

4) She does not have to copy the Force of one o your Personalities who is present in the Battle, correct? As long as the Personality is unbowed, she can copy his Force, even from another Battle or if he's home. Correct?

So long as you satisfy Presence and Relevance, and the target is unbowed, she can copy.

Next, does Arrowroot Tattoo require Presence? If somebody in a Battle is spanked, can I instead spankola someone at home who is unbowed and has the Tattoo? I figured as much.

Reactions require neither Presence nor Relevance. Those are for Battle and Open actions only.

Spider Tattoo states that its Personality applies his Force to the army's total even if bowed. I assume that this refers only to the specific that the Personality's Force is applied, rather than something along the lines of, "This Personality counts as being unbowed when calculating his army's total." Correct?

Correct. His Followers would still fail to add.

Next, how about errata stating that Hoshi's Claw may attach to a Hoshi Personality for two less Gold?

How about we not give the Dragon Clan Follower from AOF preferential treatment?

And, finally, Jeff, give us a smile!

*grumble...*

Hataki / Rekai ruling

A situation came up in a gold five way last night involving Rekai. If she was to use her battle ability, can she move in (and not use her range attack) while there is no defending units at the province?

A Ranged Attack requires a target. You cannot take a targeted action in L5R when there's no legal target for it. So, while Rekai can shoot without moving, she cannot move without shooting.

Ambush Strategist

Will Ambush Strategist give the force bonus to Ikiryo(follower) and Firestorm Legion. Both of their range attacks are based off their personalities chi's. But is this variable, because the personalities chi is set, unless it is changed.

At any given time it's known how strong their attacks are. Ambush Strategist only has trouble giving non-0 bonuses to cards where their ranged attack strength isn't known until it's made.

Plus I know that Jade Bow will recieve the force bonus from Ambush Strategist, and in turn the personality it is attached to. But what about spells with ranged attacks that are attached to the personality. Like Cascading Fire. First will it recieve the force bonus because it's a spell, and will the personality recieve the force bonus?

That's one for the Rules Team.

HOR-Gusai

Let's say a personality bows for the Imperial Favor. Gusai bows as a reaction to cancel the political action. Can the other player bow another one of his personalites for the Imperial Favor in that same turn?

Yes. Canceled actions don't count as having been attempted, so a "once per turn" action like lobbying remains usable.

post for 18 January 2002

[DM] If Hataki could not be straightened due to another effect, would he still be able to move into the battle?

His ability is usable while bowed by implicit exception to the "bowed cards can't use any of their actions" rule (which will be EXplicit in the next rulebook...). By the Smart Cards ruling, if it's known beforehand that his action will unconditionally fail to straighten himself, it's no longer legal to use it while he's bowed.

Mis-backed cards for Koku....

Are the mis-backed cards from Spirit Wars still worth koku? If so, how much per?

Yes. Three.

Political Apprentice/Kakita Atoshi

I was wondering about the interaction between Diplo apprentice and Kakita Atoshi.

If I have diplomatic apprentice attached to Atoshi and the Imperial favor can I bow the diplo apprentice to keep someone else bowed and then bow Atoshi to keep another personality bowed? On the same note, if I had 3 Atoshi's and 3 diplo apprentices could I keep 6 personalities bowed? I would assume that the diplo apprentices would have to unbow at the beginning of my turns.

By ruling, Atoshi's ability lasts while he's bowed, not until he straightens. Using a Diplomatic Apprentice with him is fruitless.

Rules Query-Farms and Ashigaru.

Just a quick question- When Large farms first came out, they were considered small farms for things like ashigaru and Pennaggolan. Is this still true???

Large Farms have the "Small Farm" trait on the Gold Edition printing, so, yes.

jaws of defeat

I'm new to the list and the game, and I'm enjoying both.

I'm a little confused about "Jaws of Defeat", whose text is "Limited: End the Action Phase." If a limited action can only be played by the player whose turn it is, what use is this card, since a player can arbitrarily end the action phase any time?

The Action Phase ends when, and only when, every player passes in a row. There is no way (well, there wasn't) for one player to end it all by himself.

Tournament Sanctioning Question

I am interested in Sanctioning a tournament. On Page 6 of the Season of the Shadowlands booklet, it says that the document needed to do this is located at http://l5r.alderac.com. I went there but did not see a link. Would someone point me to the location where the necessary documents are located? I would greatly appretiate the assistance.

They are there, now, on our home page, www.alderac.com.