rules for 26 Feb. 2004

rules for 24 Feb. 2004

If I have an attacking army at Province A and an attacking army at Province B and I am resolving Province A. Can I have an attacking card, like Moshi Amika at Province B, Province a Ranged Attack and target the Province A to lower its Strength by the Attack\222s?

No.

Why not?

Because that's how it was intended, designed, playtested, or, until this point, interpreted. Castle of the Wasp was not supposed to allow shooting between Provinces. That's much stronger than it was supposed to be, so I'm not going to allow it.

Declaring Attack...sending no units to attack...resolve this province...TIRELESS ASSAULT?

Is this legal that you declare your attack and send no units?

Yes. [DE pp. 79-80]

then you resolve the battle and play TIRELESS ASSAULT to straighten and move your bowed units on the province. thus, satisfying the rule of presence ... "...you can play Battle Actions if that action moves or gains you a unit..."?

Presence (moving one of yours in) AND Relevance (moving SOMETHING in). Yes. You need to satsify both. Fortunately, moving one of your own units in automatically satisfies both.

For me I think its not quite fair... players here in the phils. always do that combo ... please enlighten us Jeff/Zen...

Absolutely, completely, 100% legal. Always has been.

OVERCONFIDENCE

For AEG-L5R Organizers:

Since that Overconfidence is accidentally not included on the reprints of DE, is there any plans this card could be reprinted intentionally on the next DE Prints or Expansions?

It will appear in Hidden City starters.

BLACK HEART OF THE EMPIRE ... suggestions...

Hi Jeff/Zen,

I played shadowlands for a long time since emerald edition. before, shadowlands are the most feared deck due to its large size peeps and "do not lose honor" trait, plus fast cash. now, in diamond edition the shadowlands seems to be the slowest and "bonus stage deck" on tourneys. the DE shadowland cards are pretty competitive, i agree. but then the downside is that, if you are up against a LION or a WATER DRAGONS, it a sure thing that you'll end up 3 or 2 provinces with just a 4th or 5th turn run. against crane or phoenix, you'll end up chasing those 40 honor runners. I already have 2 sets of deck for DE-SHADOWLANDS, Fear Deck Military-The Spawning G. and PK-DishonorKill-T9k due to faction loyalty. My suggestion is, is it possible that you revise the Black Heart of the Empire making it "Battle: Discard the Imperial Favor to reduce the Force of one opposing card to 0. You can play this action during a battle in which you have no units."

We don't like errata. We do it as infrequently as possible. We've done it to weaken some of the more powerful elements in the Diamond environment because of how much harder it is to make something weaker by printing more cards than it is to make something stronger. Since making cards stronger does not suffer this handicap, we don't have any current plans to reprint any existing cards in a stronger form.

Rend the Soul vs Doji Domotai

2) Domotai naturally wins (including Rend the Soul, the combined Focus Values and Chi are higher than the opponent's). Rend the Soul 'notices' the win and converts the win into a tie. Then Domotai 'notices' the tie and converts the tie into a win. (When you have effects that can go back and forth like this, the guideline is to have the cycle happen once and once only.) Domotai wins, opponent dies.

3) Domotai naturally ties (the Focus Values + Chi are equal between Domotai and the opponent). Domotai 'notices' the tie and turns the tie into a win.

Then Rend the Soul 'notices' that Domotai won the duel and turns it back into a tie. Both duelists die.

You have to take a closer look at the ruling to realize that it's clarifying

the difference between results 2 and 3.

This rend the soul with domotai ruling, might be one of the most ignored rulings ever. You would think the cardinal rule of letting the active player decide the effects would somehow cancel this ruling out.

The rule you refer to applies to simultaneous contradictory effects. That isn't what's happening here. At any given time, only one of those two cards is trying to change something. The starting point is also clearly identifiable.

rules for 24 Feb. 2004 [Zashiki Warashi+Dojo Raiden]

Other Question, how does Dojo Raiden effect Zashiki Warashi, specifically the chi loss portion?

"-2" is one numeral. [DE p. 102] Increasing it by one produces "-1", then "0", then "+1", and so on.

If the Dojo Raiden has been Sezaru's Gift'ed couple times, what happens?

It would increase by 2, 3, or 4 each time.

Jeff, I thought you had ruled in the past that Penalties cannot go above 0 and bonuses cannot go below zero?

A bonus or penalty cannot be reduced below 0 by something that says "reduce a bonus" or "reduce a penalty". That's not what's happening here. You're not modifying a penalty. You're modifying a numeral. Numerals can change to anything.

rules question: decoy and battle resolution

hello,

Can decoy prevent it's personnality destruction at battle resolution?

Yes. The destruction for losing or tying in a battle is only applied once.

Neither the Decoy nor the saved Personality are worth Honor to the opponent, since neither is destroyed by the battle's resolution. The Decoy is destroyed for its own cost before that would have happened, and the Personality is not destroyed at all. All other cards on that Personality are still destroyed by the battle and are worth Honor -- battle resolution destroys the entire unit.

rules question: decoy and battle resolution

Huh. So, since:

-Units in a resolved battle are still part of an army. (Note that only defending units remain in battle after resolution.) [ZF, 8 June 2000]

and since Iron Pillar says:

-Before a Personality in your army is destroyed, bow one of your Followers in this battle to negate the destruction.

That would mean that, if the Iron Pillar formation is still intact, then indeed, you could simply bow followers rather than destroying personalities.

Yes. Again, though, the rest of the saved Personality's unit still dies.

One point--the HC rulesheet version of the Formation rules Jeff posted states that a Formation is discarded "when the battle ends". So I guess the remaining open question is, when exactly does a battle "end"? Does it end, and is then resolved, or does it resolve, after which it ends?

Resolution is part of the battle. The end of the battle is after the end of resolution. Then attacking and allied armies go home, then any Terrain in play is destroyed. [DE pp. 84-85]

Boastful Proclamation

In one game played with one of my friends today, my total family honor on his turn was 37. He didn't attack me, so at the strarting of my turn, I must check both if the honor were 40 and gaining the 3 points from the boastful proclamation. As both things check simultaneously, the active player (me) checked the boastful first, gaining 3 honor and then I checked my total family honor that was 40. Could I do this?

Yes.

As always sorry for my english level (I'm trying to improve it! :D )

I have absolutely no idea why you're apologizing. It's already fine.

Show of/feign death

1. My opponent plays Show of Good Faith and steals one of my personalities. He then proceeds to kill my personality he now controls. If one of us plays Feign Death on this personality, the personailty will come back under his control. But does the effect of Show of Good Faith (can't attack) wear off?

It wore off the instant he left play. [card text]

Does the personality come back under his control permanently?

Yes. The last effect giving control was Feign Death. Its duration is the only one that matters.

Birth of the Sword Questions

Card text ala Websune: ---- Each player may draw two Fate cards and also permanently lower his maximum hand size by two. ----

Firstly, is the reduction of your hand size considered to be an "ongoing effect" of the event, allowing it be negated by Shrine of the Sun or a similar card?

Yes.

Secondly, this card randomly gives you a one-time increase in your resources in exchange for a permanent reduction of future resources. I'm stumped as to why anyone would put it into their deck.

In general, ALL effects that give you something powerful right away in exchange for some permanent ongoing cost or drawback are speed-related cards and tend to be worth it for that reason alone. The way you avoid suffering from the ongoing penalty is to use the immediate bonus to win before it becomes an issue.

rules for 25 Feb. 2004

We're kidding here, right? The code of bushido says "Players may not make written or recorded notes during a game, with the exception of Family Honor (for any player) and army Force totals." Are you seriously suggesting that setting a die on the table is a recorded note?

Ultimately it's up to the Tournament Organizer to permit or forbid as he or she sees fit. Still, the basis is there for a T.O. to take action based on something more than his or her personal desire if a player becomes abusive, whether it be with paper or dice.

Keen Eye and Resolve (was [L5R-CCG] rules for 25 Feb. 2004)

Yes, check out page 88 of the Diamond Edition Rulebook under the heading Challenging and Dueling. It is very well spelled out (and also in direct contradiction to Jeff's ruling that you have cited, causing me to believe that the ruling needs to be updated).

The only thing I see on page 88 is confirmation that a challenge occurs before its duel begins -- issuing a challenge and entering a duel are not simultaneous. There is a strict order.

If an action is canceled before it has a chance to create a challenge, then any and all cards that refer to "during a challenge" or "reactions to a challenge" are moot. A challenge does not exist the moment someone announces an action. It must be announced, targeted, paid for, and then get to the part of its effects where the challenge is issued. This is not specific to challenges. It's the fundamental order actions have in this game.

MOST Reactions that cancel other actions do so before the canceled action produces any effects. That's why Keen Eye can't stop most of them. Dismissed is different. It negates only one effect. And it does that when that one effect begins, by its wording. However, that beginning also marks the point where Keen Eye becomes legal.

At least an official definition of "Resolve" is needed.

Reveal Focus cards, compare total Chi, determine who wins and loses, apply the relevant results. Same as with battles.

Although it is used throughout the rulebook, no definition is given. Does "Resolve" mean that all effects of the card have been accomplished? A quick reading of the uses of "Resolve" in the rulebook would tend to indicate that it does.

That's what resolving an action means. That's not what resolving a duel means. A duel is one effect -- one of a potentially large number of different effects all caused by one action -- so the word cannot be forced into one definition. "Resolve" is as much English as it is a game term.

Rules Questions

1) An opponent has targeted one of my personalities with Be Prepared to Dig Two Graves. I later use The Egg of P'an Ku to make a copy of that personality. Is the Be Prepared effect considered a permanent change to that personality?

Yes.

2) Suppose I am playing with Shinden Horiuchi as my Stronghold. If I cast a spell using the Stronghold's trait (by bowing an item), and the spell is cancelled, does that count as my once per turn use of the trait (since the action was cancelled, not paying its cost)?

No.

Can the shugenja in question cast another spell this turn? Does it matter how the spell is cancelled (e.g. Kyuden Ikoma, Faith in My Clan, Flee the Darkness)?

Yes, no.

rules for 24 Feb. 2004

Ok,

question, how does this work?

According to you jeff, in your ruling regarding walking the way, not only do you not have time to take any reactions to the playing of the third spell effect, you don't even have time for the third spell effect to resolve before playing the ring of air. So, how is it that you can not only react to playing the third spell, but also play ring of water, introspection, AND get the ring of air from that entire sequence before playing the ring of air?

The ruling is that a player cannot cast Walking the Way as his third spell effect, get the Ring of Air, and THEN play the Ring because the Ring needs to be played as soon as the Spell is successfully cast, which is before he looks through his deck. He COULD play the Ring of Air if he already had it in his hand.

It's not that there is no time to play the Ring at all. It's that the time to play the Ring is before any of the Spell's effects happen -- at the first possible instant you know that the Spell has been cast.

According to your ruling on the Ring of Air/Walking the Way combination, the player in question shouldn't even be able to play the ring of water before he HAS to lay down the Ring of Air since that last battle action would not have resolved yet before his window of opportunity to play the Ring of Air is gone.

Even ignoring the Walking the Way ruling, this point doesn't matter. The Rings of Air and Water have the same timing relative to the action that triggers them. I don't see how you can argue that one has to be played before the other.

Honor requirements

There's a couple of conflicting rulings on hand regarding whether Honor requirements need to be met at all times. I remember from the discussions of A Wish Granted this ruling being referenced:

Personalities' Honor Requirements need only be met during the Dynasty Phase. [JA, 27 September 2001]

However, I went to make sure I was remembering correctly and found this under Kolat Recruiter:

You are bound by all restrictions and requirements of the Personality, including minimum honor. [DW, email, 18 March 1999]

Does the first ruling, being more recent, override the one on Kolat Recruiter? I'm honestly not sure because I don't know if Honor Requirements count as play restrictions anymore.

Honor Requirements are a play restriction. [Glossary p. 103]

Also, the MRP of Kolat Recruiter says "In all cases, play restrictions must still be met." [card text] That plus the Glossary make things pretty clear.

Dismissed Vs. Keen Eye

Regardless, Keen Eye can negate the effect of Balance in Nothingness (provided that Jeff clears up his ruling to coincide with pp88 of the rulebook).

I still don't see what this conflict is.

For example: Player A plays Iaijutsu Challenge targeting a bowed personality. The game is placed on hold as Player B announces a reaction, namely Balance in Nothingness. Before BiN resolves (there's that pesky word again), the reaction to IC segment is placed on hold to allow for the reaction to BiN segment. Player A plays Keen Eye.

Stop.

Keen Eye is not allowed yet. There is no challenge underway.

Remember the play sequence: announce action, pick targets, pay costs, resolve effects. Balance In Nothingness was played when Iaijutsu Challenge's target was chosen. [BiN card text]