War of Honor

Legend of the Five Rings card from The Imperial Gift 3

Card Type

Other

Deck

Other

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: As worded, you can attack any player with the Limited battle, and then bow a personality belonging to any player at all in your multiplayer game. Not only is that rather abusive, but it just doesn't make sense at all from a thematic or mechanical perspective. Was Aramasu's Legacy worded as such with the intent of functioning that way in multiplayer? Because obviously players can help each other out, not defend, and give the AL player a free lockdown of any personality on the table for an entire round of turns.* Makes things a lot easier for players planning to ally later in the turn.
  *In a 4 player game, with the locked-down unit belonging to player 1, and AL to player 2, not only will the personality be unable to straighten for 4 turns, but an entire 7 turns will elapse before the personality will straighten normally during its owner's straighten phase. Meanwhile, the AL player can of course target another personality with their stronghold.
  A: You are correct, Aramasu's Legacy does allow you to target a Personality or Holding controlled by any player, not just on controlled by the target of its Limited ability - for both War of Honor and any other multiplayer format. Here on the Rules Team we don't really delve into designer intent, so that might be better answered with a conversation with a design team member, or at the very least, a discussion post in the War of Honor forum. Jon Palmer, "Aramasu's Legacy & War of Honor", 25 Jan 2013
• Q: Are the ring of flame and ring of fire considered different cards? Can I include them both in the same deck?
  A: Yes, they are different cards, by virtue of them having different titles and neither the "Soul of" keyword, nor the "Experienced [Alternate title]" keyword which would make them equivalent for deck construction or being in play at the same time, respectively.
  So, the follow-up answer is also "yes". But I should add at this point that this only applies to War of Honor and Legacy Formats, as Ring of Flame is not one of the EE-legal cards in War of Honor (noting its lack of EE legality bug). Brook Cunningham, "War of Honor Ring of flame and Ring of Fire", 25 Jun 2012
• Q: This question i could not find a specific reference for. The closest comparable reference is in regards to Chi death. It is stated, the action that last caused the Chi to hit 0 is also what is considered to have caused the Chi Death. If no action caused it, it is a game rule effect. Bold emphasis mine...
  "Chi Death Rule: If a Personality's Chi is ever zero, destroy him immediately. The source of Chi death is the card whose costs or effects caused it, or the rulebook if it was not directly caused by a card's costs or effects (for example, if a base 2C Personality with a +1C Weapon and a -2C token loses the Weapon). Note also that the source of the effects of tokens can usually be traced back to a card's effects. This destruction for having zero Chi may only be negated or prevented by effects that specifically negate or prevent destruction for having zero Chi."
  What about Dishonorable personalities, and the loss of honor from dying? The only relevant line in the rules from the section on Honorable/Dishonorable personality states is this...
  "After a dishonorable Personality is destroyed, the player who controlled him or her loses Honor equal to the Personality's base Personal Honor. This is a rulebook effect, not a card effect."
  No other wording is offered in the rules regarding the source of the dishonor loss. So if someone ranged attacks a dishonorable personality, the ranged attack is not the source of the dishonor? Is the player who uses the ranged attack even the source of the dishonor loss? this has implications in War of Honor, but also for cards like Rhetoric, so I want to be clear.
  A: You are correct that the honor loss from a dishonored Personality dying is solely a rulebook effect, and thus cannot be Rhetoric'd.
  Within the context of War of Honor, there is the special stipulation that if you announce the ability that kills a dishonored Personality, you do get "credit" for that honor loss to help you move up the Path of Victory. This stipulation exists only in War of Honor however, and still does not allow the honor loss to be Rhetoric'd in WoH games. Ben Higgins, "Rhetoric and Dishonorable Personalities...", 26 May 2012
• Q: From rules.l5r.com http://rules.l5r.com/EE_The_Player#Dishonor_loss.2Fvictory
  When two or more players are in a game... and one player loses in this way. the one remaining player has won a Dishonor Victory.
  I'm... a little confused. So I'm playing some legacy (I mean not-War of Honor) multiplayer game of 4 players and 1 player loses by dishonor. Who is the one remaining player? Did somebody just win the dishonor victory, because the condition of "one player loses this way" appears to trigger. (Cardinal rule #3 fails me)
  A: I have clarified the CR statement now (its less than ideal syntax was probably the result of hasty cutting and pasting off Military Victory's last sentence):
  "When two or more players are in a game and a player loses in this way, if there is only one remaining player, he or she has won a Dishonor Victory." Brook Cunningham, "Dishonor victory with more than 2 players", 23 Apr 2012
• Q: By contrast, would Whispers of the Dying Sun permit it to be used a 2nd time in a battle? (its still a variable. variable number of uses = variable +1 seems about the same to me as 'when the variable = 1, it now = 2. )
  Whispers of the Dying Sun
  Choose a non-Stronghold card in play. Each of its base abilities may be used one additional time this turn
  A second question: if you hit your stronghold with Whispers of the Dying Sun (and its a normal stronghold, lets say Shatter Peaks Castle) would you be able to play fires of war after whispers of the dying sun resolves to make that 'additional time' from the event be a 3rd use since fires of war adds a 2nd use? Or is the order in which numerical uses are given to an action important. ( 1 normal + 1 additional + a second use = 2 uses, or 3 uses? ) With hand sizes (based on the War of Honor tile that makes your hand size 9, stacks with 'hand size maximum increased by 1' from other effects) it would result in a maximum of 3, but it may be another scenario that doesn't apply here.
  A: Whispers of the Dying Sun cannot affect Strongholds. Brook Cunningham, "follow up shadow's lair vs. whispers of sun", 13 Apr 2012
• Q: http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=97000 Follow up to the above:
  Really? why wasn't this in a main rules changes.
  I went about looking in the War of Honor rules and the legacy Format rules (as linked on the main page *unfortunately it seems the search feature is bloken* ) and could not find any mention of it specifically in legacy.
  So it can be expected that if one was playing extended legality (often seen in The old "Utaku plains" used to specify that it could not be taken over 5 PH, this was only removed when the rule was added (that reason specifically given in the errata section of the rules here:http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Rulings_T#The_Utaku_Plains ).
  Can we assume that text isn't reinstated with the removal of Maximum personal honor? Thus both the stronghold (and paired with another bonus like Utaku Yu-Pan) will be more than able to bump battle maidens into 6 or higher? (I want to double-check before I tell the battle maiden fans in my area the limit is lifted and let them start breaking our WoH games)
  A: Currently, that is the case. No more maximum to PH unless the card effect itself states it. Sorry we missed it in the "EE Rules Changes"; it wasn't the only thing that slipped through without fanfare.
  In the future and as always, we'll certainly do our best keep you updated if any Rules, War of Honor or otherwise, change once more. Brook Cunningham, "Maximum Personal honor - follow up", 28 Mar 2012
• Q: Kakita Daiki from Drums of War
  Daiki may overlay any non-Unique Crane Clan Personality you control. While Daiki overlays another card he has +2F and the ability: "Battle: Target an opposing Personality. Daiki issues him an unrefusable challenge."
  I should have stated my question better also. We only play legacy and War of Honor. In regards to that, does the destruction by default apply?
  I am really new to the game so we have just been playing as best as we could. Now that we are trying to organize some events locally, we just want to actually figure out how to handle interactions between older cards and newer ones under the latest rules. If a card is printed prior to Khans Defiance the older rules apply and after the newer rules? does the same hold for the Duelist trait even though it has been updated for EE?
  Lastly, does the once per turn rule on a printed action only apply on cards Khans Defiance and up?
  sorry to bomb you with questions, no one locally has any clue and we are teaching ourselves.
  A: As a general (but not hard and fast) rule, when playing with cards older than the current base set, people tend to use the Legacy format rules rather than the current rulebook. You'll probably want to take some time to familiarize yourselves with the rules changes on that page.
  Specificially, there is a page explaining how older cards are worded differently than current and how that affects the way in which they are played. It will show you the break points for when changes occurred based on printing.
  So to answer specifically:
  For cards printed to Khan's Defiance, duels are fatal by default.
  For cards printed prior to Dawn of the Empire, and non-Lotus bugged cards in Dawn of the Empire, the once per turn rule does not apply by default.
  Duelist, at present, has not been changed for cards printed prior to Emperor Edition. These Personalities should be played under Emperor Edition rules.
  And welcome to L5R! Jon Palmer, "Dueling Question (corrected)/once per turn rule", 8 Jan 2012
• Q: This is more of a clarity to settle a discussion I have elsewhere. I have a friend who isn't posting rules questions because they are on cards that say "demo" at the bottom, not "EE" which would specify emperor edition set. he received these cards back in July (from gencon) and were officially released in December to stores. (The card in question is a stronghold that was never printed prior to "demo") Are we still not allowed to ask about said cards and how the interact with existing cards (such as in an upcoming war of honor tournament) even though the "demo" set is already out (thus not being an 'EE' rules question exactly since its about the cards interactions with SE cards)? Unlike asking about unreleased cards, we're asking about released cards that some of the new players want to use (because they want to play with the cards they have and in this case he's limited on number of strongholds) as we're making an exception to permit him to use new cards.
  (Another person I discussed the question says "EE" applies to all EE legal cards including promos without the CE bug such as tamori potion, but the post says "regarding Emperor Edition cards until that set is released" suggesting its only the set, not other cards (such as promos and demo cards) that happen to hold the EE bug on them. So to clarify, are we allowed to ask about Demo cards and other "EE" promos (that do not say "EE" at the bottom)?
  (also, its a war of honor question, but that isn't the point. I mention it only if War of Honor influences rules and is treated differently in some arbitrary instances like ranged attacks. It would be specifically how that card exists in relation to cards that exist now and stronghold immunity based on CURRENT printed cards, but no other current stronghold that I can think of does the same thing. )
  A: The problem with answering questions about previously unreleased cards in the demo decks is that the final printing on those cards may change when Emperor Edition actually releases, and we don't want to have confusing/conflicting rulings out there for those cards. In the meantime, local judges should be perfectly able to make rulings if you're using the decks for demo or casual play.
  As for promos, if they are dual-bugged Celestial and Emperor feel free to ask questions when they become legal. For Emperor Edition only promos, please hold off on asking questions until the release of Emperor Edition to prevent the confusion of the rules team attempting to answer questions under two different sets of rules. Thanks! Jon Palmer, "Demo questions", 31 Dec 2011
• Q: This is mostly directed at War of Honor; Since I should be playing it when I get home and already have questions. The sticky says no questions though.
  At what point are we allowed to ask rules questions? This also applies to promos. Like is it when the become legal or when it is released? I feel this is vague.
  Also, where do we ask questions about event legality. (especially again pertaining to War of Honor)
  A: The sticky has been updated - War of Honor questions are fine, Forgotten Legacy ones aren't. You can ask questions when we have the cards, and since this varies, it will be vague.
  Celestial Edition-bugged War of Honor cards are tournament legal from 6th July 2011.
  Promo legality is part of the Floor Rules. Alex Jones, "At what point are we allowed to ask questions?", 9 Jun 2011