Rules for 2 July 2004
A rules digest from the L5R CCG rules team, copied from the mailing list archive for Oracle of the Void. The askers' names are left out. Rulings are as they stood on this date; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
Your Rules for Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Kaede's Fan and double Blade of Secrets
If I use a single "Words Cut Like Steel" on an opponents 2 ph personality, and win the duel, how much honor do I gain if I have Kaede's Fan, and 2 Blade of Penances attached AND I react to the duel with "A New Guardian"?
A New Guardian says, "Play before one or more of your Personalities are restored to honor by being involved in creating an Honor gain. You receive the gain in addition to restoring the Personalities to honor. Gain an additional separate 2 Honor for each Personality restored."
Kaede's Fan says, "Increase by 1 all Honor gains created by actions this Personality performs, by duels this Personality wins, and by battles won or tied by this Personality's army."
So it goes like this:
Perform Words Cut Like Steel
Win the Duel
Trigger Blade of Penance x2 (4 Honor each) - These gains will not be affected by Kaede's fan. They are not created by actions or duels. They are created by the item's trait.
React "before" with A New Guardian (2 Honor and rehonor) - You do not have to make any choices among your Personalities when playing A New Guardian, so it does not target. It is not performed, as per page 71 of the Diamond Edition Rulebook. Consequently, Kaede's Fan will not affect this gain either.
Resolve the Triggered Honor Gains from both copies of Blade of Penance.
Resolve the "reward" of winning the duel (2 Honor + 1 from Kaede's Fan)
Total Gains:
2 + 4 + 4 + 3 = 13 Honor
The Kaede's Fan increases all honor gains "Created by actions this personality performs, by duels this personality wins, ...". If I win a Iaijutsu Challenge, does this count as an action AND as a duel, giving me a 2 honor increase from the fan? Or does the fan's description of when it increases an honor gain just give a class of triggers for the increase, and once you find a trigger it activates once?
Just a trigger that it activates once. +1 per individual gain that satifies either or both of the source requirements.
The Iaijutsu Challenge is an action that creates a duel that my personality can either win or lose. P88 and P89 seem to use the word Challenge and Duel to mean the same thing, but at the beginning of the statement it says "after an action that creates a challenge..." suggesting that the action and the duel are separate.
They are separate. Challenges come before duels. If they are accepted, the challenge is over and the duel begins.
Rules Qn: Hida Sozen and Pick Your Battles?
Let's say Hida Sozen is in a losing or tying army, but will not be destroyed because there's no Unit in the opposing army with higher Force than Sozen's.
In this case, when we get to the Resolution Segment, can Sozen's controller play Pick Your Battles, choosing Sozen to stay behind?
Jeff wrote in "rules for 12 March 2004":
- If some cards in the losing army would not be destroyed due to a trait on those cards, EG "Hantei the 39th" or "Hida Sozen", may you play Pick your Battles?
No.
Until I here otherwise, that ruling stands. If some of your units or cards won't be destroyed, then it won't qualify as the Army being destroyed, not for your Pick Your Battles, nor for an opponent's Ikoma Sume.
Army = all Units. Unit = Personality + all attached cards.
If Sozen's destruction is Negated, you haven't destroyed the Unit. It you fail to destroy all the Units, you've failed to destroy the Army.
Danjuro, Scrutiny's Sweet Sting and Well Prepared?
If I play Scrutiny's Sweet Sting on a shugenja to remove the "Shugenja" trait. SSS is redirected to Danjuro and nothing happens? I don't even get to remove the Samurai trait from him?
No. You don't. You already made your bed when you declared you would use Scrutiny's Sweet Sting to remove the "shugenja" trait back in the "Declaration Step." You don't get a do-over now that the target has changed.
And just to clarify with respect to Well Prepared --
If Danjuro is bowed, and I play Well Prepared on a shugenja in Danjuro's army, can Danjuro redirect the Well Prepared to himself to straighten himself?
No for two reasons:
1 - If Danjuro is already bowed, how is he redirecting the Well Prepared?
2 - You choose "bow" or "straighten" during the "Declaration Step" for Well Prepared. If you choose "bow" and it resolves against a bowed personality, it fails to affect him. If you choose "straighten" and it resolves against an unbowed personality, it fails to affect him.
Update from the Rules Team - Rage / Control the Field / etc.
Hello folks,
I'm just passing along some information. Jeff proposed the following, and Rules Team gave it the stamp of approval, so here's a new ruling that will reverse a couple of previous ones, I'm sure:
"Playing" a card is considered "taking an action" in all ways if (and only if) that card is an Action card.
Does that mean cancelled actions still count?
No.
How does that interact with effects that limit your "action-gaining" ability?
That's a good question. I'll go ask Jeff.
Turn of Fortune And Timing
1. Does Turn of Fortune supercede pg 74 of the DE rulebook like I think it does?
DE rulebook: "You can redirect an action or effect only to something else it could have targeted originally."
No, it does not.
That rule, however, isn't referring to the earlier game state when the Action or Effect was first targeted, though. It simply means that you can't redirect it somewhere than the player who played the Action could not himself target. The targeting restrictions of the Action are based on the original player of the Action, no the player doing the redirection.
2. With my newly acquired mantra (Declare, Target, Pay, Resolve), what does this do to, say, Kolat Assassin and Slaughter the Scout? Examples:
I move a unit into a battle; my opponent declares s/he will Slaughter the Scout (Declare). My opponent targets the unit moving in (Target). I declare a Turn of Fortune (Declare). I target my unit being Slaughtered and a personality sitting at home (Target).
You can't do it. You're bound by page 74 as noted above. Slaughter the Scout can only legally target or be redirected to a unit that just moved in. There are no other legal targets, so it can't be redirected at all.
The same question with Kolat Assassin only abbreviated: After redirecting the Assassin to Satsu with Turn of Fortune, my opponent can then choose not to pay the 10G and allow the Assassin to just be cancelled, correct?
No. You still have to pay the cost of an Action, even if that Action gets Canceled before paying costs. Further, you can't redirect Kolat Assassin to Satsu if his Chi is greater than 4 (which it likely is). Personalities with over 4 chi are not legal targets for Kolat Assassin.
[RULES|Heart of a bushido and bonds of fate.
Imagine one of my shug cast a heart of bushido. He may remain bowed. So that means that instead of unbowing him I may decide to leave him bowed. And what if my opponents try to unbow him with a bond of fate ? And what about desperate wager ? (I suppose the answer is the same).
He may remain bowed. There is no restriction on what sources of straightening this applies to, so it works against all of them, even bonds of Fate.
As for Desperate Wager, it includes those who "can not" straighten, not those who "may remain bowed." There is a significant difference in that "can not" - automatically - negates any effect that would do so, while "may remain bowed" allows you to - choose - to Negate such effects. You may waive the unbowing effect of Desperate Wager on your Shugenja.
Storm Heart
If one or more of an action's targets become illegal between when they are chosen and when the action begins to resolve, that action will not affect those targets. This remains true even if they become illegal, then return to being legal. [JA, 15 June 2004; 22 June 2004]
Does this me, that the targets are constantly checked, if they are legal from step 2 Targeting till after step 3 Paying Cost?
Yes.
So is the following ruling still correct?
In short, the requirements that a bowed Personality not Perform Actions that issue Challenges is only applied when initially selecting the Performing Personality (targeting).
Yes. That ruling is only regarding the special rule about bowed Shugenja not casting Spells and bowed Personalities not performing Actions that issue Challenge. It isn't considered to be "normal" targeting legality restriction, more of a general Action restriction. It needs to be distinct from other targeting restrictions since many Spells and Duel-making Actions require bowing as part of their costs.
That should be all for Wednesday. If I missed your question, please repost it with the flag [RULES] in the subject line and I'll get back to you at the first opportunity.