post for 29 August 2002

This is going to be my last post until Tuesday. I'll be busy helping set up OrcCon on Friday, and Monday is a national holiday here in the States. For those of you planning on being in L.A. this weekend, I hope to see you there. The rest of you: take care of yourselves, alright?

Random question:

How well does No One Wins combo with Surrender?

I'd assume you get the choice of an honor loss or not destroying your opponents cards.

Right?

No One Wins prevents all gains from destroying cards, so there's nothing for Surrender to turn into losses. It becomes a choice of destroying cards or not destroying cards, with no gains or losses either way.

Best decks in l5r history?

Mantis - METH

Mantis Empty the Hand. Used Bayushi Aramasu and another Mantis personality (was it Yoritomo Denkyu?),

Yoritomo Masasue.

both of whom had the ability to discard a card from your hand as a battle action to gain one force, as many times as you wanted per battle.

And then use Kaede Sensei to get and play the Ring of the Void, guaranteed, on the second turn of the game or so.

Bayushi Yojiro and Badge of Purity [Jeff]

Bayushi Yojiro (Exp2)

Open: If you have no Shadowlands cards in play, permanently lower Yojiro's Chi by 1 to raise your Family Honor to your starting Family Honor. This is not considered an Honor gain.

Can I use an attached Badge of Purity to negate the loss of chi, while "gaining" the honor?

No. The way Yojiro is worded, his Chi loss is a cost of that action. If you prevent him from paying the cost, the action is canceled. [p. 45]

A similar ruling was made regarding Drain the Soul and Badge of Purity.

With Drain the Soul, the Chi loss isn't a cost. (Yojiro's ability is atypical in that the loss is a cost.)

Duelist trait?

Since when has the word Duelist become a trait? Just curious.

Since just recently. Any word has the potential for being referenced by other cards later down the line.

Question about "Nemesis"

I'd like to confirm something about timing regarding this card:

Nemesis: Target one of your Personalities without a nemesis and another player's Personality. The other Personality is your Personality's nemesis until the other Personality leaves play. While your Personality faces the nemesis in battle or a duel, your Personality gains +2F/+3C. [MRP, Gold Edition, 1 July 2001]

I assume that "while in a battle or duel" means that, for instance, a a 2C personality challenging a 3C personality who is their Nemesis would satisify the conditions for, for instance, playing the Ring of Fire, since their chi is lower *before* the challenge?

Correct...usually. The bonus from Nemesis doesn't begin until your Personality enters the duel, which happens distinctly after the challenge...which, itself, happens distinctly after the time "before the challenge", which is when the Ring of Fire says to compare Chi.

The reason I say "usually" is that you might already be getting the +3C bonus from opposing your nemesis in a battle.

First, a warm up.

Overwhelemed gives its victims a choice: send home two Personalities or destroy the highest-force one. One may conclude the following:

a) If there is only one unit in the opposing army, it must be destroyed as there are not two units to send home.

b) If Winter Warfare is resolved and in effect, units cannot be sent home, necessitating destruction once more.

Are these conclusions correct?

Yes.

(If so, that's just one more bit of evidence for the argument that AEG got "Crab" and "Crane" mixed up when they went to boost clans in BB. Happens to the best of us. Both blue, both start with "C" -- but I digress.)

I'm getting a head start. Someone has promised to pick up my entire Sunday night bar tab next GenCon if I can balance the game so that an honor deck has a 50% chance of winning the World Championship.

Now, the pop quiz:

I control 9 spells and Asako Hosigeru with Uona no Shiryo attached, having gotten past HRs on a previous turn due to The Wolf's Proposal. Hosigeru is normally 2F 2C 1PH. With seven spells around, he has 3F 3C 1PH, due to Uona.

Right...although you said earlier that you have nine. I'm going to work with seven since "seven" is more likely to be correct, being harder to misspell than "9".

In a fit of pique over his inability to perform the tea ceremony properly, Hosigeru is buffed by the Wolf's Proposal once more. Uona grabs some of those "picky bonuses" from the ether, bringing Hosigeru to 7F 7C 5PH. Not bad for a suicidal shugenja.

Check.

Now, to annoy everyone at the table, I target Hosigeru with Force of Will, switching his Chi and PH.

What's Hosigeru's Force, Chi, and Personal Honor?

His Chi becomes 5 and his Personal Honor becomes 7. Now, since his Force and his Chi are allowed to get two more bonuses from Uona no Shiryo, his Force becomes 9 and his Chi becomes 7. Final answer: 9F/7C/7PH.

What is the source of any "bonus" to any of those stats?

He has seven +1 Force bonuses from Uona no Shiryo. He has seven +1 Chi bonuses from Uona no Shiryo (and a -2 penalty from Force of Will, due to changing it from 7 to 5). He has a +4 Personal Honor bonus from The Wolf's Proposal (due to changing it from 1 to 5) and a +2 Personal Honor bonus from Force of Will (due to changing it from 5 to 7).