post for 5 April 2002 pt. 2

post for 1 April 2002

Which would mean that the [Dragon Tatoo] ruling SHOULD apply to Mitsu as well, so it is applied evenly in all situations.

Ideally, yes, but Mitsu has the complication of Experienced versions to consider first, so I'm taking extra time to consider that.

On a side note, which restriction applies to Mitsu for the number of Fire Tokens he can have -- his own wording, or the Dragon Tattoo's wording? Or, which I don't think would be the case, but I'll ask anyway, are they treated as separate restrictions, in which case Mitsu could have 8-10 Fire Tokens, depending on what version is in play?

They're separate restrictions, but they don't stack. They'd all be in effect at once and the one with the smallest limit would be the only one that mattered.

Face Me! (Higatsuku)

The effects of the recent targeting ruling keep spreading. Say my Higatsuku uses his ability on someone with higher chi in a battle, bowing and forcing him to challenge. Now, I try to play "Face Me!", which targets both duellists. You can't target your own bowed personality (in this case, Higatsuku) with (re)actions. So does this preclude you from playing the card at all? There is a legal target--the other player's personality....

You must be able to satisfy all targeting requirements of any action before you can take it.

Baku no Oni

I have a question for the rules team concerning the new Baku no Oni. I was wondering, how will he interact with the Forgotten Tomb? Will he enter play immediately after you place him in the Forgotten Tomb and then, upon entering play, have his force and chi values permanently set? Are printed stats of " *" equal to zero while not in play?

In this particular instance, the '*'s are treated as 0 until the Oni enters play and they change. It would enter play from the Tomb immediately -- or after one turn if you're playing the Spawning Ground, since it gives +1/+1 to all Oni you own, which includes the ones still in your deck and Provinces.

Cancelling actions on bowed personalities [Jeff]

Jeff? Whats going on here? This is a MAJOR and I mean MAJOR ruling change. Not to call into question your judgement, but I mean. Cards effected are so many.

Posioned Weapon? Can it target your bowed personality?

Poisoned Weapon does not target your own Personality.

Investigation? Can it target your bowed personality?

Investigation does not target your own Personality.

Can we get a concrete ruling on all of these, instead of just Towers

The Towers of the Asako does not target your own Personality. It's been reversed.

Face Me! (Higatsuku)

This got me thinking.... There was a ruling way back when... It was for Hoshi Maseru. The ruling was "bowing was the last thing you do when resolving an action." This was so that Maseru (who unbows after casting kiho) could target himself with Chasing Osano-Wo. If that ruling still holds then, technically, Higatsuku itsn't bowed until the duel is over. Bring back Shosuro Tech and Face Me!

The ruling is not that bowing doesn't happen until after everything else. The ruling -- now a rule, on page 46 -- is that, for any action, targets are chosen before costs are paid. Thus a Shugenja or Monk can target himself with a bow-to-cast Kiho. Sadly, Maseru will still be bowed while his own duel commences.

Dark Oracle of the Earth Question

I haven't seen this asked and can not find it in the Archive. If I was playing the Warrens of the Nezumi and brought out the New Dark Oracle of the Earth. When I use it and Flip over a Ratling what happens? Do all affects happen except my Rat doesn't gain the Shadowlands trait?

The Warrens protects "your" Ratling cards from the Shadowlands trait. We're consistently using the rulebook definition of "your" in Gold Edition and beyond, so that protection only extends to Ratling cards in play under your control. A Ratling Personality still in your Province can be tainted.

Canceling actions on bowed personalities

This is not the first time I have expressed this criticism and yes, when I did there were alternatives. Personally, the pre-gold targetting worked fine.

Then why did so many people have trouble with it? Why was it not at all unusual to ask two different people if Card X was targeted and get two different answers?

I'm not privy to everyone's problems but most targetting issues were handled simply: Does it say it specifically targets? If it doesn't then is there a possibility for there to be a choice? If not that it doesn't target. That's it.

I would also like to point out that the old rule had the same shortcoming the new one does: it tells you if an action is targeted, but when it is, it doesn't tell you what it targets.

If you answered no to both questions then it didn't target. If there's a situation that can't be covered under the above, then let's have it.

It's not that simple. Just because it's two questions doesn't mean they're easier to answer than four. It also has a long history of producing its own unintuitive results. Togashi Yoshi/Void Strike/etc. were universally considered targeted at the outset of the game because they FELT that way. Then someone pointed out you can't have more than one of your own Personalities enter a duel at the same time, ever, so something that affected "one of your Personalities entering a duel" never gave you a choice as to who that was. An intuitive ruling was discovered to be wrong.

Mamoru. Mamoru is a Ninja who can cancel a Ninja, Kolat, or Assassin action targeting you or your cards. Question: since Mamoru's action is, itself, a Ninja action, can one Mamoru cancel another's cancelation? Intuitive Answer: sure. Actual Answer: no. Actions are not simultaneous in L5R. At any given time there is at most one action that has just happened, and that's the only one Mamoru can respond to. Therefore there's never more than one thing he can cancel, ever. No choice = not targeted. When your Mamoru bows to cancel my Kolat Assassin, he does so without targeting my Kolat Assassin, and therefore I can't stop him with my Mamoru, or an Investigation, or anything like that. Another intuitive ruling was discovered to be wrong.

Fast-forward to Time of the Void. A Test of Courage was considered untargeted from then until Force of Honor was printed in Honor Bound. Force of Honor targeted and sent home multiple units at the same time -- something that had never been possible before. Now, although AToC would still cancel the whole thing, you had to decide which of the Personalities you had just saved had to suffer the drawback of "You may not bow this Personality to produce actions or target this Personality with actions for the rest of the turn". That sure made it seem like AToC was targeted now, which was a bummer, since the old ruling that you could play more than one on the same unit had to be scratched.

But what it really meant was "Is there a possibility you could have a choice?" was a deceptively difficult question to answer.

Zen brought up Stand Togther/Enough Talk!, which is mechanically identical.

Canceling actions on bowed personalities

Jeff, how does this one sound to you?

Here is an idea that could work without resorting to the blanket ruling for reactions that seems to be causing such a ruckus.

Personalities or units can not be effected by the same reaction more then once per turn.

I see absolutely no need for such a rule.

hence most reactions will still work AND the Asako Towers will lose some of it power, but not completely.

Rulings aren't made based on Clan tournament strength. (How many times do I need to say that?)

Be Prepared to Dig 2 Graves

Can be prepared to dig two graves be played by a shadowlands player. I think so, but I got argued down by two players last night.

Reaction: When a Personality of your Faction is destroyed during a battle, target a Personality opposing the one destroyed. For the rest of the game, while Personalities of your Faction face the Personality in a battle or duel, the Personalities of your Faction each gain +2F/+2C.

The trigger is never satisfied. Shadowlands cards are not considered members of the Shadowlands Faction. There aren't any traits you can put on a card that mean "This card is a member of that Shadowlands Faction.", other than that whole sentence. So, you can't ever have one of your Clan's Personalities die during a battle.

Buncha questions that I hope some of you may answer

1. Yasuki Hachi (Gold Edition) - Is there a reason that his card says 'Counts as Daidoji Hachi for deck construction' rather than 'Soul of Daidoji Hachi'?

Y. Hachi was not the "Soul of" D. Hachi because he was the same person, not someone one or two generations removed. Yet we did not want to MRP any changes onto any existing Personality cards purely for storyline reasons -- we did that at the start of the Jade arc and made a lot of people who didn't care about storyline games upset. You're seeing the best way we could work around both limitations.

Also for Hachi, what's a Gunso?

A military rank similar to sargeant, capable of commanding up to 200 soldiers.

2. Can I use multiple Counterattacks after my opponent has attacked me? (Providing I have enough unbowed personalities or use cards like Rallying Cry of course)

Yes. This is a surprisingly ordinary case of reacting to the same trigger more than once. It only seems odd because the first Counterattack takes so long to resolve.

4. If I have a shugenja outside the battle with the spell Jade Strike (Bow this Shugenja and destroy and item you control. Destroy any one shadowlands follower or shadowlands personality that doesn't have a follower. The target must be in the same battle as the item that was destroyed. This action is considered a Ranged Attack originating from the item) and an item on a personality inside the battle, would it satisfy the rules of Presence and Relevance and be allowed to do?

You have a unit in the battle. That's Presence.

You're targeting a card opposing the Item, so you're targeting something in the battle. That's Relevance.

It's legal.

5. Open Arms (Reaction: Gain the personal honor of a human personality not aligned with your faction after bringing him or her into play during your dynasty phase. Permanently raise the amount of familiy honor needed for an honor victory this game by the amount you gain) - Is there really an use for this card, since you don't get any closer to a victory when you play it?

No, but you can get above your opponent or above a crucial value for your other Personalities' requirements.

6. The First Shout (You may play this card face up as a Focus in a duel; your opponent must Focus again if able and his Focus card is randomly selected from his Fate hand) - Same here. Since it is only a focus 1 card (if cards even add their focus values when played for an 'effect') - won't the only result of this be that your opponent will quickly win the duel since he's focusing and you're not? Or did I miss something fundamental here?

First, you're forcing your opponent to discard a card at random. That in and of itself can be useful.

Second, there are ways of getting rid of your opponent's focuses before the duel ends. You might be focusing garbage, but it's better than nothing.

Third, The First Shout is the first in a series of three cards that have progressively stronger effects but require that the previous card in the sequence be played or focused earlier in that battle or duel.

7. Why are the Gold Edition foil cards so ugly? :)

The quality of a brand new foiling process is difficult to predict.

8. I have Doji Reju (who wins a duel in the event of a tie) and he's using the Coward's Way (lets me bring in another personality to add the chi) Coward's Way says that if I lose or tie, the second personality suffers the safe effects as the original personality. So if the result of the duel is a tie, does that mean Reju will 'win', my other personality lose and my opponent lose, giving me possibly two different effects as a result of the duel at the same time?

If you tie, things that normally happen to the winning Personality affect Reju, so they'd apply to the other Personality as well. Note that things that happen to YOU, the winning player (like gaining 5 Honor) don't happen twice.

9. Also with the Coward's Way, it says that my opponent focuses first in the duel. I'll read this as to say choose wether to focus or strike,

That is correct.

but what if I also use cards like Tetsubo or Kakita Technique, who gets to strike first then?

Whichever of these cards goes into effect last is the only one that matters. Tetsubo will always go into effect first, being a trait that's always present. Coward's Way and Kakita Technique both have the same trigger and timing, so you can play them in either order. I recommend Coward's Way first.

10. If I play Arrows from the Woods, and use the first ability (Battle: Ranged 2 attack) can I use the reaction on another Arrows from the Woods to raise that to 4, or must the ranged attack come from an ability of one of my units to satisfy the reaction?

Every printing of Arrows From the Woods refers to a ranged attack coming from one of your units. One cannot boost the RA of another, because Arrows From the Woods is not a unit.

(Unrelated, I'm assuming 7 gold cost and 2 focus value on one of my Arrows is a misprint since all my other Arrows are 0/3)

It is. By errata and MRP, it's 0.

11. If I play The Company You Keep (Personalities brought into play by the active player this turn with a PH higher than the target's [family honor] enter play dishonored) - Do you still gain honor from them coming into play when paying full gold for them?

Yes! Unfortunately, that Honor is 0, since that's the Personal Honor of a Dishonored Personality. (Now there are times you want to get a bunch of 0-point honor gains, but usually you're better off buying everyone cheaply instead.)

12. Family Tactics (Name a family. Each personality in your army that is a member of that family gains +1F) - When using people that are Soul Of someone (For example, Yasuki Hachi / Daidoji Hachi mentioned earlier), are the names interchangeable since they are really the same person, or are the rules in Rokugan so strict that they only care for their current name?

If you're playing in a Strict Gold Storyline tournament, your older Personalities are considered proxies of the "Soul of..." versions in Gold Edition/Dark Allies and are played by the exact text of the newer version, including new family name.

In all other games, you play everyone by what's written on the card.

13. I have some Doji Meihu and Sanctified Temple with green (Fate) card backs. Do these mean anything other than that I have to spend money on sleeves to cover the cards? :)

You can send them in with your next koku order. They're worth 3 each.