Final Duty

Legend of the Five Rings card from Death at Koten, Battle of Kyuden Tonbo, Three Dynasties

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Card Text

Battle: If your current army has lower total Force than the current enemy army: Ranged 6 Attack.

Focus Value

1

Legality

Destroyer War (Celestial), Race for the Throne (Samurai), Three Dynasties

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: Player, B uses Open emotion’s open action, showing final duty. Player A passes his limited/open phase. Player B uses Daidoji Murata’s ability on province 1 and 2. Player A declares an attack, assigns his infantry at province 1. Player B assigns his infantry to defend at province 1.
  Player A chooses to resolve province 1 first, can Player B play Final Duty using Open Emotion’s action or does Murata negate his ability to do so.
  A: Daidoji Murata does not prevent Open Emotion's additional action, because Murata only requires a player take an action or pass - not be the first regular action or pass. Zen Faulkes, "Open Emotion + Murata", 10 Feb 2011
• Q: My opponent attacks me, assinging 2 units to attack province A. I defend with a personality, and another player allies with me and sends a personality to defend as well. My personality gets destroyed by an action. So, all that's left at the battlefield is my opponent's attacking personalities, and my ally's defending personality. In this situation, I wouldn't be able to play Final Duty, because I don't satisfy the rule of presence, correct?
  A: Looks right. Zen Faulkes, "Junghar Encampment + Rule of Presence?", 31 Aug 2010
• Q: Junghar Encampment: Am I considered to have an "army with lower total force" ?
  A: Yes.
  http://rules.l5r.com/CE_Card_features#Absent_stats: "If something in the game needs to know the value of an absent stat, the value is zero.
  "If a side at a battlefield has no units, its total army Force is treated as an absent stat." Zen Faulkes, "Junghar Encampment and Final Duty", 25 Aug 2010
• Q: My opponent attack a province with a unit "A" and fight a battle here first. I have a unit "B" in an adjacent battlefield and none in the current. My Junghar Encampment give me the opportunity to play a battle action as if I have at least one unit for it. I take it (by exemple a Final Duty) and my opponent use the reaction of a Determined Force. What happens now? The effects will be negated or not?
  A: Yes, the effects will be negated.
  The Junghar Encampment allows you to play YOUR action as if there is a Defending unit, for such things as presence, or opposition, but it has no effect on conditions/requirements/triggers of any other action, such as another player's Determined Force. Brook Cunningham, "Junghar Encampment Versus Determined Force", 17 Aug 2010
• Q: How are these two situations different from each other? Why I'm unable to play Final Duty when I got bowed personality targeted with Plains? Because rulebook says clearly that army total force is force of your unbowed personalities not force you count during resolution. Plains doesn't say that personality contribute force to army total force. Maybe he cotributes in resolution?
  A: No, he doesn't JUST contribute in resolution. Because Plains doesn't say "during/in resolution" like Game of Sincerety, it means the Personality contributes his Force while bowed during the Combat Segment TOO. Brook Cunningham, "Plains of Resolution; Game of Sincerity; Final Duty", 7 May 2010
• Q: Could you make some kind of final rule for this and write down grounds of that decision?
  A: We already had done:
  Contribute: "To add a card's or unit's Force to an army total. Effects allowing or denying contribution apply at any time an army exists, unless restricted to battle resolution." Brook Cunningham, "Plains of Resolution; Game of Sincerity; Final Duty", 7 May 2010
• Q: If I attack with Hida Kuon and the enemy player has 2 Personalities with 4 force each and I kill the 1st with Kami Unleashed, bowing Kuon. He passes on his next action. Can I use Final Duty to kill the remain personality with the ranged 6 attack since Kuon is bowed and no longer giving force to the battle.
  A: http://rules.l5r.com/Glossary_F#Force_total: "(A)n army's Force total is the sum of the Force of all unbowed Personalities and Followers in the army."
  Yes.
  (I'm assuming this is about the Exp. 6 Kuon. Although not relevant to this question, I'll take a second to remind people to mention Experience levels in questions. Thanks.) Zen Faulkes, "Final Duty/Army total force?", 26 Jul 2009
• Q: If I attack with Hida Kuon and the enemy player has 2 Personalities with 4 force each and I kill the 1st with Kami Unleashed, bowing Kuon. He passes on his next action. Can I use Final Duty to kill the remain personality with the ranged 6 attack since Kuon is bowed and no longer giving force to the battle.
  Thanks,
  [Mod edit: Slang removed. -ZF]
  A: Yes.
  If Kuon is the only personality at the Battlefied, and is bowed, your Army's Force is 0. Dan Jacobson, "Final Duty/Army total force?", 26 Jul 2009
• Q: I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I wanted to make sure.
  Game of Sincerity - Battle: Dishonor your target unbowed Personality: Dishonor a target Personality. His controller loses 2 Honor. Neither Personality contributes Force in this battle's resolution.
  Final Duty - Battle: If your current army has lower total Force than the current enemy army: Ranged 6 Attack.
  Do personalities targeted by Game of Sincerity (as long as they are unbowed) count when determining "army force" for Final Duty?
  Thanks John
  A: Army Force consists of the total Force of all unbowed Personalities and Followers at a battlefield.
  The fact that some may not contribute Force at Battle Resolution is irrelevant for Final Duty. Dan Jacobson, "Game of Sincerity and FInal Duty", 6 Jul 2009
• Q: My question is this and is related to the changes in CE regarding unit force totals.
  How exactly is an army's force totalled for the purposes of FINAL DUTY for example. I understand that unit force will be the force of the cards in that unit whether bowed or not but that they do not contribute force to the army total in resolution. Is this lack of contribution of force also true for such effects which check army force before resolution?
  (if the timing of my question is too early by definition of not answering CE questions yet then I apologize)
  ETA: Whilst I respect the decision of Zen not to answer this question now - surely the only definitive reference material the rules team would need to answer the question is the new CE rules - which must be available to the rules team at this juncture and since there may be in CE cards that will reference this particular rules change would it not be better to have answered the question so TOs have an answer to fall back on when then run CE launch events.
  A: Not taking this one now, as stated in the announcements. Zen Faulkes, "What Precisely does Army Force consist of?", 19 Jun 2009
• Q: I know for certain it didn't in Celestial edition - that's why Final Duty plus Kami Unleashed were so powerful together in SPC
  A: @Brook Cunningham That's not what it was supposed to be. After Reese changed the rules so that the force of a unit counted the Personality and Followers' forces, bowed or unbowed, the force of an army was still supposed to what you would count in Battle Resolution. Alex Jones, "Oracle of the Void #rules", 6 Aug 2022