post for 18 March 2002

Defend Your Honor

My opponent has Doji Nagori and Suspicions in play. Can I play Defend Your Honor when Nagori bows and causes me an additional one-point Honor loss?

Nagori does not cause you a loss himself. He increases the loss that Suspicions causes you. You cannot play Defend Your Honor against his action. (You can't play it against Suspicions either, since that's not an action.)

Golden Obi and other things

I was wondering what would happen if someone used the Golden Obi's reaction in response to using To Do What We Must?

Then the destruction of the Personality is prevented, which means the cost of TDWWM is no longer met (you must destroy the whole unit). That player now has the option to try to pay the missing part of the cost again (i.e., destroy the Personality he just saved) or allow To Do What We Must to be canceled. [AOF rulebook p. 45...sort of. Until now, the rulebooks have said the action "fails" if the missing piece of the cost is not filled. That changes to "canceled" in the upcoming Dark Allies set because "fail" is not defined.]

post for 15 March 2002

I'm afraid that I am confused by it. Does this mean that the resulting combination between a normal ranged attack and one that has the fewer restrictions (the phrase in quotes above is not a restriction, it is actually a loosening of restrictions) may still target a Personality with attached Followers?

It means targeting restrictions aren't considered traits of the Ranged Attack, like Elemental and Kiho are. I'm not sure what that ruling was issued in reference to anymore, but it sounds like someone was trying to pull something really technical and tricky with a pedantic reading of the rules.

I know why.

If Balash has an Ikiryo and Ikiryo fires against a Personality with an attached follower, you (Jeff) have ruled that Balash cannot add to it.

That's covered in the basic rules now: you can only combine ranged attacks if they can all shoot at the same time and at the same target. [AOF rulebook p. 63]

If Tsuruichi uses the Arrow Knows the Way against a Personality with an attached follower, then his Ashigaru Archers cannot help it.

Incorrect, by the Gold Edition wording of The Arrow Knows the Way. But that's a special case.

The ruling is ambiguous; it should say combined ranged attacks do not gain attributes or somesuch.

But combined ranged attacks DO acquire all the traits of all their components. [p. 63]

It also does not follow; from what I can tell, there is no reason why one should not be able to combine ranged attacks with those added attributes from the rulebook, and certainly not for any game balance reasons.

It seems to be there to vex, for the most part. :-/

A more likely answer is that the rulebook has changed and this entry is now redundant.

Golden Obi

One thing I want to know is: if you have follower(s) attached to Kurohito would you destroy the followers, then you would destroy the golden obi when finally the personality would be detroyed?

If a cost or effect destroys an entire unit, the Obi's Reaction will only prevent the destruction of the Personality card. Everything else attached will still die.

Frontal Assualt, Scout, Deadly Ground

Hello All!

Was looking at this the other day, it came up in a game with a mate.

I wanted to play the deadly ground with the scout, and also react with the frontal assault. We decided i couldn't do it (i won the battle anyways) but i would love to know if somehow this is possible to do? I am not all that crash hot on the timing in l5r.

Frontal Assault is played before the Battle Action Segment. [card text] The Scout's Terrain is played before the Defender's first normal action, but that's still within the Battle Action Segment. Frontal Assault will always go first and will preclude playing Deadly Ground with a Scout (or with a Sneak Attack).

1000 Years of Darkness: No Thank You

Open play is fun play, but it doesn't have sanctioned supprt.

We still sanction Open format tournaments. We just don't run them ourselves or base storyline results off them.

Ruling question

Kaneka's Blockade: Target a player who has a different Wind that you. Discard six cards from that player's Fate deck. Discard three cards from your Fate deck for each other player that has the same Wind as you. Discard this Event without resolution if you have no Wind.

Now, IF this is the final wording of this event, this wouldn't mean that you search through the person's deck and chuck whatever you don't want, right? They just discard the top 6 off of their deck?

By the previewed wording, it would be just off the top.

Timing question

The following situation occurred in the SotC tournament we had yesterday.

Player A (using Eternal Halls) sent an honor loss via Wind's Truth to player B. Player B used Kaukatsu to share the honor loss. Player A wanted to know if he could bounce the Wind's Truth back to his hand before he took the honor hit, to send it back to player B.

So the question is, which of the following is true: 1) Wind's Truth goes off, and players get to react to the playing of the Wind's Truth before it resolves, including bouncing it back to hand, thus it being in hand before player B takes the honor hit. (I'm fairly certain this isn't it)

OR

2) Before bouncing the Wind's Truth it must fully resolve (successfully be cast), and thus player B takes the honor hit and gets first reaction (using Kaukatsu), so player A takes the honor hit before Wind's Truth is back in hand.

OR

3) The reaction frame goes like this: Play Wind's Truth...any reactions to cancel it? No Wind's Truth is successfully cast...any reactions to the success of the casting? Yes...bounce it. The Wind's Truth takes effect...any reactions to the effects? Yes, Kaukatsu So again, the Wind's Truth is in hand.

Or

4) Wind's Truth is cast, player B loses honor and uses Kaukatsu, but the reaction window is still open from the Wind's Truth casting, and thus player A can take the Wind's Truth back into hand and play it before taking the honor hit.

(And yeah, I read the timing rules in the rulebook!) ;)

Long question!

Short answer: #3.

Side note: you should never find yourself in a race between Wind's Truth and Kaukatsu, since Wind's Truth is played "when" honor is lost while Kaukatsu is used "after". There's an arbitrarily large gap between these two reactions' timing windows, and so neither #2 nor #4 can be correct answers.

Kaneka's Blockade Question

If you have no Wind and someone else IS playing with a Wind and they resolve the event, are you considered to have a different Wind? Does the event resolve with no effect or do you technically "have a different Wind" and thus have to discard six cards?

The last line of the preview reads: "Discard this Event without resolution if you have no Wind." It doesn't matter if other players do. If you don't, this Event is a wasted card slot. It won't even stop another player's from resolving later in the game.

Setsuban Festival question

This came up recently and I was wondering if the ruling we made was correct.

Against a scorpion player, the event Setsuban Festival came up. This destroyed all tokens, including the ones on Secrets on the Wind.

Since the player was Scorpion, it was ruled he could continue using it since destroying a token was not a cost for him. Was this ruling correct?

Yes.

Question on the Sideboard rule ...

Regarding Kaneka's Blockade, please check if my logic is correct. If we had the optional sideboard rule in a particular tournament, the normal way of starting would be to reveal strongholds and winds (if any), then apply sideboard if desired. If I undestand correctly, you may not have any unique card or event as a sideboard, but if I so choose, I may have a Jade works (or something, it doesn't matter) in my sideboard and switch it with Kaneka's Blockade once I know what my opponent's wind is. Is this correct?

No, because then your Sideboard would contain an Event. You can't swap forbidden cards into it, either.

Stifling Winds/Yogo Asami/Other Stuff

Can this be used by a personality outside a battle when targeting an opposing personality?

The second ability, which does not refer to "opposing" cards, may be used so long as the standard rules of Presence and Relevance are met.

Also, can Yogo Asami use her ability from outside a battle?

If and only if the only Personalities she can possibly cause to bow are all in the current battle.

Personal Honor and reduced cost

I would like to know whether a personality with zero personal honor can be brought into play for two less gold by a person who is playing the same faction as the personality in question.

You always have the choice of "reduce Gold cost by 2" or "add Personal Honor to Family Honor" when buying a Personality from your Faction during your Dynasty Phase. In fact, you MUST choose one or the other. You are always free to choose either.

Note that there is a difference between reducing the cost and gaining honor even if the Personality has 0 Personal Honor, because in the latter case there is still a gain of 0 points as opposed to no gain at all, and there are ways to increase gains.

Personal Honor and reduced cost

In General, if a personality that cost 0 gold is aligned to my faction, can i reduce the cost to -2 to not gain the honor of the personality.

Yes.

Golden Obi; Winds

I think the confusion stems from Can you Sub a Price ?

Yes, but the card has to be clear that that's what it does (like Acquiring Favor).

Since TDWWM says destroy a unit as the cost. I play obi as a reaction to my unit being destroyed. Some people interchange that with the price being payed already.

They are incorrect.