post for 22 March 2002

A Few Questions

Greetings,

Our local Taint Boy (tm) was playing with a dishonored Kyoso no Oni and successfully attacked another player, wiping out the army. His question was, even if he cannot gain or lose honor, would his personality be rehonored?

It would not. From the rulebook, his Family Honor needs to increase to restore the Personality. If it's locked at -19, he can't restore Personalities to honorable by doing something that would gain a normal player Honor. (That's also why 0-point Honor gains don't re-honor Personalities.)

Simp Question: Can a defender use the abilities of Fortifications when he/she does not have a unit present?

Actions on Fortifications and Regions are not exceptions. You need to have at least one unit present to use any Battle or Open actions on these cards.

In fact, these two card types have the added restriction that their Battle actions are only usable during the battle of the Province they're attached to.

question

Opponent plays Luring Tactics, can I play Test of Courage to keep my personality in the battle?

Yes.

Since A Test of Courage cancels the action entirely, neither Personality would move, plus the Luring Tactics would not count against the Tactician's one use of that trait this battle.

card questions

Shadowlands Marsh Each non-shadowlands Personality and non-shadowlands Follower has -2F while in battle at this Province.

Yamaso no Oni Cards in the attacking army cannot gain Force bonuses during battle at this Province.

If the Defender plays Test of Might, can the attacking Personality Focus, or would that constitue a Force bonus and have to strike immediatly?

It's still legal to Focus. It would simply not raise his Force. He's *probably* going to just strike, but he's not *forced* to.

If he could Focus and both cards are on the Province and he has 0 printed Force, would he have to make up the -2F through Focussing?

Without the Oni, he'd have to focus at least 3 focus points worth of cards to overcome the Marsh's penalty and get his Force above 0. With the Oni preventing his focuses from adding, it's impossible.

Can a Tactician Personality at a Province with Yamaso no Oni use the Tactician trait or is he prevented?

If he could use it, would it be for the focus value or would it be a 0F bonus?

He could use it, but there would be no bonus. (It would not be a 0F bonus. There would be no bonus at all. Subtle difference.)

Also if he Tacticioned and moved to a Yamaso-less Province, would it change his Force, had the boost been zero'd out?

Yamaso no Oni doesn't override Force bonuses or change them to 0, it stops them from applying in the first place. Moving the card elsewhere won't make a "hidden" Force bonus turn on again now that the Oni is elsewhere.

question

A Test of Courage Reaction: Play this card when an action is moving one of your target Personalities out of battle. Cancel the action. You cannot bow the Personality to take actions or target the Personality with actions until after the turn.

The question is, is the phrase "out of battle" equivalent to "out of THIS battle" or "out of ALL battles"...?

Read it as "out of 'a' battle."

Master of Five question-Jeff

Here's a question for you, came up in a local pick-up game. Does the mere act of ATTACHING the spell "Fire and Air" count as those actions for purposes of Master of Five?

No. [AOF rulebook p. 34] Actions written on cards pick up traits only from the one card they're written on, and actions that aren't on a card -- like lobbying for the Favor or attaching a Spell from your hand -- do not acquire traits from any card.