post for 3 December 2002

I need a ruling

porcelain mask of Fu Leng exp states the following:

this personality gains the shadowlands trait and the ability "battle: fear 3" and all your shadowlands personalities gains +1f/+1c while the mask is attached. During each of your events phases, remove a porcelain from the mask. Destroy this personality and give all your shadowlands personalities -1f/-1c if the mask is destroyed.

my questions are:

A) when attatching this version of the mask, where do the tokens come from,

No tokens come from anywhere. [card text]

B) since it does not specifically state that you must attach any number of tokens, does that mean you are able to attach any number you feel like?

You add the same number as when you play a Light Infantry, Walking the Way, or any other card that says nothing about adding porcelain tokens: zero.

C) supposing you attach this item to a big meanie such as hida kuroda exp. does he get his two fear 8's AND a fear 3?

He gets one Fear 8 action and one Fear 3 action, both of which can be used twice per battle.

Tsuruchi Hiro

Speaking of MRP, the MRP of Gifts and Favor is stupid and redundant,

What exactly is the MRP?

Bow Gifts and Favors to produce 2 Gold. Reaction: During your End Phase, if you've brought no Gold-producing Holdings into play this turn, bow your Stronghold to retrieve this card from your deck and put it into play, bowed. If you have no Gifts and Favors in your deck or face-down Provinces, you lose the game. Shuffle your deck.

Tsuruchi Hiro

The MRP is that if you go searching for it and it is not either in your deck or face-down in your provinces, you lose. This is to prevent people from getting all their G&F out and the constantly reshuffling their deck afterwards.

Untrue. It's to prevent people from unscrupulously "forgetting" they don't have any left in order to get one or two free reshuffles, which they can make as thorough or as skimpy as they like based on how much they like the order of their upcoming Dynasty cards -- or at least greatly reduce the temptation.

Fall of Otosan Uchi rulings

First and foremost, Wear Him Down + Iaijutsu Art. I play the Art, my opponent focuses, I focus, he strikes. Can I play Wear Him Down?

No. You have already focused once this duel.

Shinjo Horsebow + some Cavalry guy. Can I bow the Horsebow for a ranged 2, then bow the Personality for a ranged 4 in my next action even though the item on which the ability is printed is bowed?

No. If the Horsebow is bowed, neither of its actions can be used.

Can I bow the Horsebow for a ranged 2 and the Personality for a ranged 4, and combine the two ranged attacks for a ranged 6?

No. Both attacks come from the bow, since that's where the action is written, and you cannot combine multiple ranged attacks coming from the same card.

Supposing it's on, say, Shinjo Maku, can I bow the Horsebow for a ranged 2 and Mako for the ranged 3 printed on him, and combine the two ranged attacks for a ranged 5?

Yes.

Speaking of Ranged Attacks, if I have, say, a Spearmen (ranged 2) on a Tsuruchi Nobumoto (ranged 3), and I put a Higher Ground in play, if I combine their ranged attacks is the result a ranged 6 or ranged 7?

6. Only one ranged attack is coming "from your army".

Can I use Tsuruchi Hunters for their Ranged 4 if my opponent has passed?

Yes.

Yokutsu no Shiryo says "Reaction: Bow Yokutsu no Shiryo before one of your bowed or unbowed Personalities becomes dishonored to have this Personality commit seppuku (even if the Personality is not a Samurai)." Does that mean that the Personality being dishonored commits seppuku, or that Yokutsu's Personality commits seppuku?

Yokatsu no Shiryo says "that Personality", not "this Personality". It's the one being dishonored who seppukus.

For The Shadow's Claw, suppose that I play it and draw the top 5 cards of my deck, only to discover that I cannot focus with any of the top 5 cards of my deck (perhaps because of an Armor Of The Golden Samurai or a Blade Of Truths or somesuch). What happens?

You do everything except focus. You'd take one card into your hand and shuffle the rest (four cards in this case) back into your deck.

Pulse of the Black Finger River has resolved, and later on in a battle I use a Ranged Attack on one of my opponent's Personalities and he uses, say, Experienced Isawa Nakamuro to redirect it to kill a Shadowlands Personality in my army. Who gains the honor?

You. Redirecting an action does not change its source or creator.

For Hungry Ghost, the ability says "destroy a non-spirit token controlled by any player". Does that mean that I cannot use it on my own Farmlands tokens if I am using Shrine Of The Spirits as my stronghold?

It means that, yes. Your Stronghold gives your Farmlands tokens the Spirit trait, since they're human Followers. [card text]

And a couple of questions for older cards. For Twenty Goblin Winter, it says that all Human Followers in the game get +1F. Does that include Followers not yet in play?

Yes.

Also, for Shiryo no Kaze, he's a Dragon Clan Ancestor AND a Monk Ancestor. Does that mean that he will attach either to a Dragon Clan OR a Monk Personality, or that only Dragon Clan Monks can attach him?

Dragon Clan or Monk.

Rules Q: Shinjo Horsebow

1) I have the Horsebow attached to a cavalry Personality. May I bow the Personality for the Ranged 4, then bow the Horsebow for the Ranged 2, and combine them?

No.

2) I have the Horsebow attached to a Personality with cavalry, and an innate ranged attack. Does the Ranged 4 get added to the Personalities innate ranged attack?

No. You can't make both at once. [GE p. 63]

3) I assume it is possible to bow the Personality for a Ranged 4, then bow the Horsebow later for a Ranged 2.

You can.

Is the reverse true? Can I bow the Horsebow for a Ranged 2, then bow the Personality for a Ranged 4?

Already answered. No.

Rules Q: Tonfas and Heroic Sacrifice

I have a Personality with two Tonfas attached, and play Heroic Sacrifice, causing my Personality to lose the Double Chi trait (rather than destroying one of my tonfas). In which of the following circumstances do I regain Double Chi?

1) At the start of the next turn (presumably not). 2) When I move one of the tonfas to another personality, and back again (giving the Double Chi trait again). 3) When I play a Double Chi kiho on the Personality. 4) I can never regain the trait. 5) If my Personality had Double Chi already (before attaching tonfas): in this case, I don't lose the trait in the first place.

2 and 3.

post for 2 December 2002

You can start a turn with an honor gain in place? Well... when did you gain that honor? You didn't gain it on the last turn, because of the card text. You can't have gained it on the current turn, because it bypasses In Time of War, and In Time of War says you can never go above five more than what you started the turn with--so if anything bypasses that, it can't have happened on the current turn. That honor gain must have occured during an infinitely small period of time in which player A had finished his turn, but Player B was not quite on his yet.

You're making this far more complex than it really is.

Conceptually, it has to check for honor, but where does the idea that something can be faster than it come from?

From people making up overly complex explainations to try to make sense of a...*ahem*...a straightforward paradox.

You've got two cards both trying to do something at the same time that can't both be DONE at the same time: I n Time of War tries to memorize your Family Honor for future reference, and Boastful Proclaimation tries to change your Family Honor. The reason this is happening is also a simple one: that's what the cards SAY.

Fortunately, the rulebook tells us how to resolve this paradox: the active player picks one of these things to go first. [GE p. 5] He will pretty much always choose to take Boastful's gain, then have In Time set its cap. (This IS a reversal from how I ruled originally -- the gain does not automatically happen first, technically.)

Boastful Proclamation ruling.

2. People are describing In Time of War as if it were some process or machine, it is not. It is a card that creates a change in the game environment. That In Time of War "checks" your starting honor is somewhat ludicrous.

I honestly don't understand these comments. In Time of War puts a limit on your Family Honor based on your start-of-turn Family Honor. How could this POSSIBLY happen without knowing what that number was? That's all I mean by "checking" -- answering the question, "What was my Family Honor at the start of the turn?"

Boastful Proclamation ruling. (rule question at bottom)

We know what jeff means, but we are arguing that ITOW doesn't actually check, that it KNOWS.

"Check", "know"...I have NO IDEA what you think the difference is.

so if you gained 5 honor the turn before boastful comes out, your option at the beginning of your turn is 2 things.

1) reset ITOW 2) gain 3 honor.

Correct.

if you gain 3 honor before you reset ITOW it is negated under the honor gain from the last turn.

Incorrect. It is now the next turn, so the Family Honor cap from last turn no longer matters.

Nothing is happening between turns or being retroactively forced to happen at the end of last turn. Both options 1 and 2 are, by card text, happening in the current turn. The weirdness you're seeing is a result of option #1 not really happening right at the start of the turn like it usually does. This is entirely due to Cardinal Rule #3 forcing one of those two options to occur after the other due to them being intrinsically unable to both happen at the exact same time.

Boastful Proclamation ruling. (rule question at bottom)

Ok Here is my Boastful Proclamation Question, If I can gain the Honor before ITOW hits, does that mean that I can gain the honor before my turn actually starts?

No. [card text]

In Other words if I am at 37 honor and flip Boastful, gain no other honor, but I keep the province through my opponents turn. Can I gain the 3 honor before my turn starts so that I start my turn at 40 and win?

Yes. By Cardinal Rule #3, you choose to take the start-of-turn honor gain from Boastful Proclaimation before the start-of-turn check for an Honor Victory in the rulebook.

post for 2 December 2002

2. If I have in play

Mirumoto Zenko

with two weapons, one of wich is:

Shinsei's Staff

And my opponent plays a Focus 5 in a duel against him. How much does his Focus aport to his Chi? one?

One.

Jeff,

I thought you had originally ruled that it was dependant upon whose turn it was as to which effect happens first since both take effect at the same time.

I also generally rule that when multiple modifiers stack, any minimums or maximums only matter if all the modifiers share them. In other words, if one effect reduces a value by three and another, applied at the same time, reduces it by three to a minimum of 1, that the minimum of 1 just doesn't matter and the value always goes down by the full 6. I'll see what the Rules Team says, though.

post for 2 December 2002

IE : If I control Zenko and it's my turn, I'll naturally pick to reduce it to 3 and then by 2. But, if it's my opponent's turn and I control Zenko he'll pick to reduce the FV and then cap it at 3 if it's still higher than 3.

You are getting this phase thing confused. You control your cards so You get to pick which effect happens first.

The Cardinal Rule is that the active player picks, not the controller of the cards.

This is not true with duelling PW because both players have cards.

It's not true with dueling Poisoned Weapons because they are Reactions, played and resolved one at a time. Thus there is no timing conflict as to which -3C applies first -- the -3C from the first PW played applies first, and the rules for who REACTS first are deterministic.

Issue for Jeff

Tokens aren't cards unless they're followers.

That is the correct default rule. [GE p. 40]

Cards and Strongholds bow, as described in the rulebook. Tokens, being neither by default, do not, making it pointless to target them with effects that would bow them or impossible to use them with effects that bow them as a cost.

Correct. Effects that try to bow them do not. They cannot be bowed to pay costs.

In addition, the Undead Champion resulting from Summon Undead Champion is neither a token nor a card,

Incorrect. It is a card by MRP. [archive]

The term 'Unbowed' is not clearly defined,

"Unbowed" means not bowed. It applies only to things that can be bowed.

Incidentally, as none of the described entities are cards, their destruction during battle resolution would not generate honor.

Correct (other than the Undead Champion error).

post for 2 December 2002

ok Jeff, so if cards not in play are neither bowed or unbowed, what is the default state that a card re-enters play in?

Unbowed.

and how can you return a bowed card to play if they are neither bowedo or unbowed before they enter play?

You're not returning a bowed card to play. You're returning a card to play bowed.

Useless timeline questions

It's me again! I'm a little confused about the timeline in the story behind L5R.

Forwarded to the Story Team.