Rules for 29 March 2004

Alright, moving along to the Rules for Monday, March 29

Question: No Hiding Place timing

I have my opportunity to play a Battle or Open action in the Battle Action Segment. I want to use an attacking Tsuruchi Hiro plus No Hiding Place to kill a Seruma in the other player's fief.

[MARTY] No Hiding Place says:

"Reaction: Play before producing a ranged attack from exactly one of your attacking cards in the current battle to target a card in the Defender’s home with that ranged attack. The ranged attack has -1 strength."

Now, the trigger might seem to at first indicate you play this card immediately before resolving ("producing") the Ranged Attack effect of an Action. However, you'll never get that far with Tsuruchi Hiro because you'll never be able to pick Seruma as a legal target for his action and move onto this point.

This means that in order to have No Hiding Place do its thing, you need it to resolve before you choose targets.

Jeff Alexander wrote the following in "Rules for 4 March 2004

No Hiding Place is a Reaction to that action that, in this case, is played before the action (since it changes what the ranged attack is allowed to target). That puts it before the first opportunity to act. But it's legal because it's reacting to the ranged attack action.

And tie that in with the following from the Rules Archive:

"Actions must be announced before playing Reactions that occur "before" the initial action occurs (e.g., Imperial Messenger), so that there is a known legal trigger for the Reaction. Once an action is announced, you may not voluntarily abandon it because a Reaction to it has been canceled or negated (unless costs or targeting requirements are no longer met). [ZF, 15 April 2003]" (Accumulated Rulings, "Timing")

Based on the above rulings, I'm going to go with "after you declare a Ranged Attack" as the timing on this, just to keep things tidy. No Hiding Place gets worded a little differently because it can respond to an individual Ranged Attack in a series of Consecutive Ranged Attacks as well as Actions that produce single Ranged Attack.

Rules. (Jeff Alexander)

Well, I'm not Jeff, but I do answer his phones ... er ... list-emails. I'll see what I can do.

I am forwarding a question from one of my players.

Hey Rusty. Could you ask Jeff Alexander for a ruling on this?

If I pay the gold cost for a Geisha Assassin with an Honoured Sensei, do I get 2 gold or 3 gold and an honour from the holding?

-Thomas

Honored Sensei produces 2 gold for Geisha Assassin, since it is an Action. One of its effects may be creating a Personality, but Honored Sensei doesn't say it produces extra gold for actions that create a Personality, on the Personality themselves.

It is the same long-standing ruling that kept Bushi Dojo from providing any gold to activate the Action on Farmlands until Bushi Dojo was reprinted with new text to address it. If it says "for X" but not "for an Action that produces X" you can't use it to pay for an Action that produces X.

As for the flurry of Shiba Aikune questions, I'm going to reserve the right not to answer any questions about cards that aren't released yet, especially since I have neither a print copy of them nor the rules sheet that will be in effect when they come into the environment.

That said, if I see a preexisting rules issue that is subject to confusion, I'll try to clear up that confusion.

In the case of the Aikune thread, we need a reminder about the distinction between Cost and Effect.

You can't pay a stat-reduction cost like Chuda Retainer with a personality that doesn't have sufficient value in a stat.

You can play an action that creates a stat-penalty effect on a card greater than the current value of that card's stat, like say Wanton Destruction (gives you -4 Force after the first duel). After all the ongoing effects are tallied up on a stat, if its value is less than zero and it is neither Family Honor nor Honor Requirement, set the stat to zero. Those penalties are still in effect until their duration expires, though, and count against subsequent attempts to raise the state with further bonuses. (Diamond Edition Rulebook, "Bonuses and Penalties")

That looks like all of it. Everything else it seems Jeff addressed with in-thread responses. As always, if I missed your question in there somewhere, I'm sorry. Please repost your question with the flag [RULES] in the subject line and I'll address it at the first opportunity.