Higher Ground

Legend of the Five Rings card from Gold Edition, Forbidden Knowledge, Jade Edition, Pearl Edition, Storms Over Matsu Palace, Ivory Edition, Ambition's Debt, Fire & Shadow, Winds of Change, Promotional–Ivory

Card Type

Strategy

Gold Cost

0

Keywords

Terrain

Card Text

Your Ranged Attacks have +1 strength. Other player's Ranged Attacks have -1 strength.
Battle: Destroy a Terrain (if able). Put this Terrain into play.

Focus Value

1

Legality

A Brother's Destiny (Ivory Edition), A Brother's Destiny (Twenty Festivals), Clan Wars (Imperial), Four Winds (Gold), Hidden Emperor (Jade)

Deck

Fate

Printings

Rules Q&A

• Q: I have a shugenja with 2 force and 7 chi, and Kuro's Fire. He's in an army opposing a large number of 2 force targets. Higher Ground is in play. If it's my Higher Ground, each of my Ranged Attacks is at +1 strength because of the Higher Ground, so I only need to make Ranged 1 attacks to destroy those targets, but they count as Ranged 2 attacks when I'm counting up the total for Kuro's Fire. I make 4 attacks, using 8 points of my allowance of 9. I have one point left over, so I make another Ranged attack at strength 1, which, boosted to 2 by the Higher Ground, destroys a 5th target. Correct?
  A: Yes. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 1 December 2003", 1 Dec 2003
• Q: On the other hand, what happens if my opponent put that Higher Ground into play? Each of my Ranged attacks is at -1 strength, so, to be consistent with the ruling for increased RA strengths, it seems I need to make Ranged 3 attacks to destroy those 2 force targets, but each attack counts as just 2 against Kuro's Fire's limit.
  A: No. Kuro's Fire keeps track of the unmodified Ranged Attacks you voluntarily make. It does not count modifiers. Zen Faulkes, "Rules for 1 December 2003", 1 Dec 2003
• Q: Beachhead is an immediate terrain that grants all Naval cards in the battle a 1F bonus. Does destroying the terrain via Superior Tactics, et al get rid of the bonus? The GE rulebook indicates that all effects of immediate terrains disappear (paraphrasing) when they're destroyed. I'm taking this to mean that things like Higher Ground, for example, and that force bonuses are NOT affected.
  A: The term "effects" covers EVERYTHING. That includes Force bonuses. So, no, Beachhead is not a Terrain that takes full effect regardless of whether it's destroyed. (Ask Zen how I feel about Wide Terrain sometime for clues as to why this might be.) Jeff Alexander, "post for 9 January 2002", 10 Jan 2003
• Q: Speaking of Ranged Attacks, if I have, say, a Spearmen (ranged 2) on a Tsuruchi Nobumoto (ranged 3), and I put a Higher Ground in play, if I combine their ranged attacks is the result a ranged 6 or ranged 7?
  A: 6. Only one ranged attack is coming "from your army". Jeff Alexander, "post for 3 December 2002", 4 Dec 2002
• Q: If Higher Ground is in play, or Arrows from the Woods is used, do these count for the total strength of the Ranged attacks, which must be less than the caster's force+chi?
  A: This is one for the Junta. I can see it being read either way: applying the Chi as a limit only to the initial splitting or to their total strengths until they're all resolved. The latter is the more literal, but it leads to undefined cases when their strengths start getting decreased and increased in a series of reactions. Jeff Alexander, "replies to 6-9 July 2001", 19 Jul 2001
• Q: So, with Stars Scatter, any in place modifications only change the strength of the original Ranged Attack, not all the consecutive ones that follow. This would include things like Higher Ground, as well.
  Hmm. Vaughn, does not the active controller get to decide which order to apply his card effects in?
  A: Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Traits always apply before actions, so you cannot do this: Vaughn Derderian, "Rules for December 11th", 11 Dec 2000
• Q: Just for Clarification, does the ruling linked below apply only to blanket effects like Higher Ground, or also to effects on individuals like Bayushi Meiko? I ask because the Combining text in the Advanced Rulebook says, "...instead of creating a separate attack effect, each of those actions' relevant attack effects adds its own strength (with any modifications in effect) to the strength of the original attack effect." Since there's not a separate attack effect created for each combined attack beyond the first, does only the initial attack actually target the Personality?
  viewtopic.php?f=59&t=106458
  A: Correct; only the initial Attack effect targets.
  The taking of Interrupts happens before effects resolve, which is where targeting happens.
  As you referenced from the Advanced Rulebook on Combining, the Attack effects boost the announced ability's Attack effect rather than create an Attack effect of their own. It is because of this distinction that the Attack effects used to boost the initial action to not themselves target. Ben Higgins, "Ranged/Melee/Fear combination clarification", 28 Jan 2014