Stone Breaker

Legend of the Five Rings card from Samurai Edition, Promotional–Diamond

Card Type

Personality

Force

6

Chi

0

Honor Requirement

-

Gold Cost

6

Personal Honor

1

Clan

Unaligned

Keywords

Unique, Nonhuman, Siege

Card Text

Will not attach Items.
Will not challenge or be challenged.
Stone Breaker will not be destroyed for having 0 Chi.
Stone Breaker has -6F while it has no unbowed Followers.
Battle: Even if Stone Breaker is bowed and only if it is bowed, bow a performing Follower in its unit: Straighten it.

Legality

Race for the Throne (Samurai), Rain of Blood (Diamond)

Deck

Dynasty

Printings

Rulings

• Erratum: Reads, “Stone Breaker 6F/0C –HR 6G 1PH Siege • Nonhuman • Unique Cannot attach Items. Cannot challenge or be challenged. Is not destroyed for having 0 Chi. Has –6F while it has no unbowed Followers. Battle: If Stone Breaker is bowed, bow a Follower in its unit: Straighten Stone Breaker.” [MRP, Samurai Edition, 25 July 2007] Comprehensive Rules, Samurai Edition, with specific card rulings, final version, May 2009, p. 158

Rules Q&A

• Q: If I play Political Entanglement on the Stone Breaker, what becomes of his "Does not die from having 0 Chi." ? Does he die now? Would he die if his Chi had been raised to one before (now making him 0 Chi) ?
  A: Hm, you mean if you make it say, "Does not die from having -1 Chi?"
  Sure, I guess that would work. It would never have -1 Chi as his Chi stat, and it would no longer have protection against death at 0 Chi. It probably should've been written with the "0" as "zero." Martin Lund, "Rules for 12 July 2004", 15 Jul 2004
• Q: Crane player with a Refuge in play uses Show of Good Faith on the Rat's Stone Breaker. Can the Stone Breaker get sacked to the Refuge?
  A: Sure. Nothing prevents you from sacrificing Stone Breaker as a cost. You don't have any problems with illegal targets because searching doesn't target anything you find. Prior precedent says that you can search when instructed, regardless of whether or not you can successfully find anything (Isawa Taeruko, Regions of Rokugan, etc.). Martin Lund, "Rules for 14 May 2004", 17 May 2004
• Q: 1) How does Stone Breaker interact with Temple of the Ninth Kami. If use the action on T9K and only have Stone Breaker in play, must they become dishonored? By accumulated rulings, wouldn't they have to become dishonored since it is known in advance that the option will fail?
  A: Looks that way to me. Martin Lund, "Rules for 13 April 2004", 14 Apr 2004
• Q: Can you bow multiple Chuda Agents and permanently reduce the Chi of The Stone Breaker by 2 (for each one) to produce 3 Gold, since it doesn't die from having 0 Chi?
  A: When you need to lose Chi (or any other stat) to pay a cost, the cost is not paid unless the current value for that stat drops by the entire required amount. Since no stats on a Personality can go below 0 except Honor Requirement [DE p. 62], a Personality with less than 2 Chi cannot be used with a Chuda Agent. That includes the Stone Breaker. Jeff Alexander, "rules for 25 Feb. 2004", 26 Feb 2004
• Q: Will the Stone Breaker have to overcome the negative chi amount if you give it a chi boost, if for some reason it comes up? (Say, if it's attacking the Dark Path of Shadow) Or does it end up being capped at a minimum of 0?
  A: Both. Its final Chi cannot drop below 0, but excess penalties need to be compenstated for by bonuses until the total can be more than 0. Jeff Alexander, "rules for 25 Feb. 2004", 26 Feb 2004
• Q: (Can Stone Breaker) be challanged with determination(?)
  A: It can.
  http://rules.l5r.com/Glossary_C#Cannot: "When found in card text, and when referring to a type of cost or effect (e.g., bowing, Force bonuses), 'cannot' (or 'can not') means that a certain type of effect or cost is negated whenever it occurs."
  Exceptions are important, so let's check those:
  "EXCEPTION: In card text, when referring to entering play, targeting, attaching, using a trait, or taking an action, 'cannot' is a restriction on the legality of that thing in the first place, not negation of its effects." Challenging is neither entering play, targeting, attaching, using a trait, or taking an action, so none of those exceptions apply. Zen Faulkes, "Stone breaker + Determination", 11 May 2008