I'm wondering: Is the 'attacking' word really necessary in the rings' effects description?

After all, we already have the notion in the rule that on normal case, only the attacking player can resolve a claimed ring effect. So what's the use of stating it again in the ring description?

If the goal is to have Hotaru and Toturi being able to resolve the effects on defense too, wouldn't the simplest solution be to just remove this (maybe?) redundant word from the description?

Is there something I'm missing here?

30 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

Neither card gives you the "attacking player trait". There is no "attacking player trait" and your opponent does not stop being the attacking player. That is the problem. If it SAID this, then we would be talking, but nowhere does it say that.

To point out there is a reason why I kept putting them into quotes, since both effects of Defend the Wall and Display of Power specifically say to treat the defender as an Attacker. Which is specifically what 3.2.6 looks for. I know there is no "Attacking player trait"

Quote

If the defending player or no player won the conflict, nothing happens during this step.

So these cards need to identify the defender as an attacker to use this step.

How I'm reading those cards is that you are able to use step 3.2.6, not that you have an action outside of that step. (since both 3.2.4 and 3.2.5 are impossible with Defend the Wall, and 3.2.5 is impossible with Display of Power)

That is different than what Hotaru does.

1 hour ago, KerenRhys said:

I'm wondering: Is the 'attacking' word really necessary in the rings' effects description?

After all, we already have the notion in the rule that on normal case, only the attacking player can resolve a claimed ring effect. So what's the use of stating it again in the ring description?

If the goal is to have Hotaru and Toturi being able to resolve the effects on defense too, wouldn't the simplest solution be to just remove this (maybe?) redundant word from the description?

Is there something I'm missing here?

If the intention is to allow Hotaru and Toturi to resolve the ring effects in defense to their own benefit the easiest way to fix it would be to change the rules. That said, changing the rules sometimes creates a domino effect for other cards. I don't have the foresight to see what other cards may be effected by this, but there are a lot of non-released and non-spoiled cards as well as currently-not-thought-up cards which could be effected.

I think the first thing to worry about is the intentions of the cards, then we can worry about how to fix it.. if it needs fixing. I don't think an errata would actually be too difficult as the game is new, and all future copies of the card can be printed correctly. It doesn't take much for important errata knowledge to spread through the player base.

57 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

To point out there is a reason why I kept putting them into quotes, since both effects of Defend the Wall and Display of Power specifically say to treat the defender as an Attacker. Which is specifically what 3.2.6 looks for. I know there is no "Attacking player trait"

So these cards need to identify the defender as an attacker to use this step.

How I'm reading those cards is that you are able to use step 3.2.6, not that you have an action outside of that step. (since both 3.2.4 and 3.2.5 are impossible with Defend the Wall, and 3.2.5 is impossible with Display of Power)

That is different than what Hotaru does.

The thing is - when you claim rings there is still an attacking and defending player. If you don't "resolve as if you were the attacking player" then you can activate the rings effect but the attacking player is still designated by the ring to make the choices for it (page 14, Ring Effects - all effects specify the attacker making decisions in the ability). The term "Attacking Player" refers to the player that initiated the conflict that is currently resolving. The conflict doesn't end until 3.3 which is after you claim the ring and would trigger Hotaru / Toturi. If the intention is that they benefit from the ring the ring needs to lose the "attacking player" designation in the ability, or Hotaru / Toturi need to including the "as if you were attacking" phrase.

That said - there are some fringe cases where popping the ring ability even if your opponent decides the results can be useful. If the only characters with fate are your opponents and they attack with Ring of Void to force you to claim it without gaining the effect then you can force them to resolve it which still requires they remove a fate from a character with fate. There is no "may" in ring effects. They may only have the option of bowing their own character if they attack with Ring of Water and only you have a bowed character, and only they have a ready character with no fate. Extreme fringe cases here...

3 minutes ago, shosuko said:

If the intention is to allow Hotaru and Toturi to resolve the ring effects in defense to their own benefit the easiest way to fix it would be to change the rules. That said, changing the rules sometimes creates a domino effect for other cards. I don't have the foresight to see what other cards may be effected by this, but there are a lot of non-released and non-spoiled cards as well as currently-not-thought-up cards which could be effected.

I think the first thing to worry about is the intentions of the cards, then we can worry about how to fix it.. if it needs fixing. I don't think an errata would actually be too difficult as the game is new, and all future copies of the card can be printed correctly. It doesn't take much for important errata knowledge to spread through the player base.

The thing is - when you claim rings there is still an attacking and defending player. If you don't "resolve as if you were the attacking player" then you can activate the rings effect but the attacking player is still designated by the ring to make the choices for it (page 14, Ring Effects - all effects specify the attacker making decisions in the ability). The term "Attacking Player" refers to the player that initiated the conflict that is currently resolving. The conflict doesn't end until 3.3 which is after you claim the ring and would trigger Hotaru / Toturi. If the intention is that they benefit from the ring the ring needs to lose the "attacking player" designation in the ability, or Hotaru / Toturi need to including the "as if you were attacking" phrase.

That said - there are some fringe cases where popping the ring ability even if your opponent decides the results can be useful. If the only characters with fate are your opponents and they attack with Ring of Void to force you to claim it without gaining the effect then you can force them to resolve it which still requires they remove a fate from a character with fate. There is no "may" in ring effects. They may only have the option of bowing their own character if they attack with Ring of Water and only you have a bowed character, and only they have a ready character with no fate. Extreme fringe cases here...

I'd agree that the rings should lose the "attacking player" designation. It'd make the game a lot cleaner in a lot of ways since there is already a check on attacking player in the resolution of the rings step.

The problem is that unless Hotaru's ability was designed to allow fringe cases where you force the attacker to use the void ability, the wording is just terrible to have you use the ring's ability twice as the attacker. And I agree that those fringe cases are so far and in between that having an unclear wording of the card makes no sense, and a simpler "Resolve the ring twice when you win a ( ) conflict as the attacker." should be used in it's stead.

It's kind of bad design all around on their abilities, and it's unclear, as long as the ring descriptions specifically say "as the attacker"

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

I'd agree that the rings should lose the "attacking player" designation. It'd make the game a lot cleaner in a lot of ways since there is already a check on attacking player in the resolution of the rings step.

Agreed. The intent is clear from articles, designer comments, and frankly, common sense; you can trigger the ring effect on defense using these characters abilities. We were playing without the rulebook for months, and I'm fairly confident that this is the way we all interpreted the ability. The only thing that changed was that "The attacking player..." phrase in the ring effects portion of the RR. Best to just get rid of it, IMO, it seems redundant.

So in case this was still at debate, I got this reply from Nate French today regarding Toturi/Hotarus abilities:

Hello,

While they can be triggered on the defense, the resolution of each ring does explicitly refer to “the attacking player” performing the action. With that wording, in most cases, it would not be beneficial to trigger these abilities on the defense.

Nate French
Senior LCG Designer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

So while you can trigger them on defense, the attacking player would still resolve the action as per the rulebook, making it unbeneficial to do so. Sorry if this was posted elsewhere, I submitted this question a while ago and just got a response.

19 minutes ago, Daigotsu Kai'Sen said:

So in case this was still at debate, I got this reply from Nate French today regarding Toturi/Hotarus abilities:

Hello,

While they can be triggered on the defense, the resolution of each ring does explicitly refer to “the attacking player” performing the action. With that wording, in most cases, it would not be beneficial to trigger these abilities on the defense.

Nate French
Senior LCG Designer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

So while you can trigger them on defense, the attacking player would still resolve the action as per the rulebook, making it unbeneficial to do so. Sorry if this was posted elsewhere, I submitted this question a while ago and just got a response.

If there was any doubt that Toturi/Hotaru are the worst of the champions......

Probably a bigger blow to Crane than Lion since there are viable Lion builds that don't run Toturi.

This was not the answer I was expecting.

That decision sucks, even more so on evergreen champions that were already on the weakest side without this, and their re-reading of their clan articles sucks even more since they stated the exact contrary in those.

Now, we'll have to explain to players that just read the official articles and don't hunt for rules Q/A that yes, the official site of the game is wrong and no, contrary to what it says, they can't resolve rings on defense to their advantage.

Quote

While they can be triggered on the defense, the resolution of each ring does explicitly refer to “the attacking player” performing the action. With that wording, in most cases, it would not be beneficial to trigger these abilities on the defense.

Nate French

http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/37000-akodo-toturi-and-resolving-rings-at-defense/

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

If there was any doubt that Toturi/Hotaru are the worst of the champions......

Probably a bigger blow to Crane than Lion since there are viable Lion builds that don't run Toturi.

This was not the answer I was expecting.

Remember that this is the answer as the rules and cards are printed currently. Same as they said we could move our stronghold until the rules changed so that we couldn't.

We could receive an errata to these cards to add the "as attacking player" effect if that is the intended purpose. Afaik ffg isn't shy about errata when its appropriate.

This just tells us how to play it as is.

I'm quite concerned about how the FFG team is going about rules making and rule explaining internally. At Gen Con, the question was asked whether or not the opponent's Stronghold was known prior to choosing where to place your own provinces. One judge said that you would know, another said you would not know. I was honestly surprised that something like this didn't come up in playtesting and was part of the documentation for judges to review. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I feel like this could have a huge impact on a game.

And now we have a ruling that blatantly contradicts preview material, which leaves me questioning the rules writing process and how complete the rules were when these articles were written. At this point, I have the impression that no one at FFG has a comprehensive grasp of the rules, and that's worrying, especially given the long development cycle of this game.

Wow, you mean the cards do what the rules actually say?

Colour me shocked!

2 hours ago, Daigotsu Kai'Sen said:

So in case this was still at debate, I got this reply from Nate French today regarding Toturi/Hotarus abilities:

Hello,

While they can be triggered on the defense, the resolution of each ring does explicitly refer to “the attacking player” performing the action. With that wording, in most cases, it would not be beneficial to trigger these abilities on the defense.

Nate French
Senior LCG Designer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

So while you can trigger them on defense, the attacking player would still resolve the action as per the rulebook, making it unbeneficial to do so. Sorry if this was posted elsewhere, I submitted this question a while ago and just got a response.

Let's not forget here that apparently Nate also said that Borderland Fortifications could swap with your stronghold, and that was quickly "erratad" by changing the rules so that it couldn't. I will still be playing Hotaru/Toturi triggering on defense while I wait for them to change the rules to allow it, as that certainly seems to be RAI.

Why Nate insists on providing RAW interpretations is beyond me; anyone can read RAW, but only the designers can give us RAI. You're the designer, for pities sake, how do YOU want it to work?!

Also side note, shouldn't the game developers have accounts for the L5R forum? And shouldn't this answer be posted by an Adminstrator to be pinned for an #Rules Reference update? Instead of being buried along an army of contents? This rule for Crane and Lion seems pretty important? Just food for thought?

This is ridiculous. I received at least 2 conflicting rulings at Gencon, and even their tie-breaker resolutions contradicted themselves. This rules team better get their heads out of their asses before they kill this game in the cradle. Their own example documents contradict Nate's ridged rulings.

47 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

Let's not forget here that apparently Nate also said that Borderland Fortifications could swap with your stronghold, and that was quickly "erratad" by changing the rules so that it couldn't. I will still be playing Hotaru/Toturi triggering on defense while I wait for them to change the rules to allow it, as that certainly seems to be RAI.

Why Nate insists on providing RAW interpretations is beyond me; anyone can read RAW, but only the designers can give us RAI. You're the designer, for pities sake, how do YOU want it to work?!

Yes.

From Gaffa post under the Stronghold Province topic posted August 10th.

Quote

I asked Nate French, co-lead designer of L5R, about the Borderlands Fortifications swapping with your stronghold. The answer is:

Of course it can. As per the Rules Reference, your stronghold is a card, and it is in a province, so Borderlands Fortifications can indeed change places with it. However, the province your opponent has to break to win the game is the province "slot" that your stronghold started the game in.

For what it's worth, if your stronghold was moved to a broken province, it then sits in the broken province but is not automatically discarded, because your stronghold cannot leave play.

39 minutes ago, Ragudaddy said:

This is ridiculous. I received at least 2 conflicting rulings at Gencon, and even their tie-breaker resolutions contradicted themselves. This rules team better get their heads out of their asses before they kill this game in the cradle. Their own example documents contradict Nate's ridged rulings.

I've had the same happen a couple times, once only a round after the first time the question was asked. I can only imagine how painful this will get when we're running decks that are more reliably able to pull off their shenanigans.

1 hour ago, Casanunda said:

Let's not forget here that apparently Nate also said that Borderland Fortifications could swap with your stronghold, and that was quickly "erratad" by changing the rules so that it couldn't. I will still be playing Hotaru/Toturi triggering on defense while I wait for them to change the rules to allow it, as that certainly seems to be RAI.

Why Nate insists on providing RAW interpretations is beyond me; anyone can read RAW, but only the designers can give us RAI. You're the designer, for pities sake, how do YOU want it to work?!

I'm not entirely certain that even is the RAI. I get that it's a less powerful effect than some have been thinking it was but there are a couple cards that do let you use ring effects when you're not the attacker and they all say that to resolve it as if you were the attacker. **** even the Phoenix Champ has that line in her effect so maybe this is hoe they are really meant to be used.

So, the silver lining of this ruling is that, if your opponent is doing a Ring of Water (maybe to collect the fate on it or something) when the only viable targets are their own characters, even though they will likely choose to not trigger the ring, you can trigger it and force them to bow one of their characters :P.

26 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

So, the silver lining of this ruling is that, if your opponent is doing a Ring of Water (maybe to collect the fate on it or something) when the only viable targets are their own characters, even though they will likely choose to not trigger the ring, you can trigger it and force them to bow one of their characters :P.

Nice try.
Unfortunately, all Ring Effects are optional. (All say "...you may...").

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that this ruling makes the champions terrible. Is this an objective assessment, or is it just disappointment that their effect isn't quite as powerful as they thought it was? Seems to me that it just means that you use the champion while attacking instead of defending, as getting to activate a ring twice is still pretty potent.

Wow, way to nerf worst champions into the ground. So they are just too lazy/don't want to put out errata so instead we need to play with cards that were designed to be played completly different. Nice job

@JJ48 I think most people are salty(including me) that ffg said the champions work one way, provided examples for that, and then suddenly said: "whoops we worded our cards wrong, play according to the printed text instead. they are weaker btw *wink* *wink*".

Why you so bad Toturi?

3 minutes ago, BordOne said:

Wow, way to nerf worst champions into the ground. So they are just too lazy/don't want to put out errata so instead we need to play with cards that were designed to be played completly different. Nice job

@JJ48 I think most people are salty(including me) that ffg said the champions work one way, provided examples for that, and than suddenly said: "whoops we worded our cards wrong, play according to the printed text instead. they are weaker btw *wink* *wink*".

Do we know that the wording of the rings was finalized at the time the articles were written? From what I can tell, the initial introductions to the rings makes no mention of the attacker in their abilities, so it may be that this specification was added later.

If that's the case it sounds more like they changed their mind and intentionally nerfed the two champions, rather than made a mistake and got stuck with it.

51 minutes ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

Nice try.
Unfortunately, all Ring Effects are optional. (All say "...you may...").

Actually the ring effects are not optional. When you win a conflict as attacker activating the ring effect is optional, but the resolution is not. Toturi choosing to activate it when the effects would be favorable through target restriction like ring of void or water when they are the only ones with valid targets is legit.

Man people are salty over this. Why did he give a RAW ruling? Because the game needs to work according to the rules. If am interaction is not happening as intended they can't just say it works a different way, they must either errata the cards or the rules to make it work.

As with howles moving stronghold we'll have to see if am errata arrives. Until then i strongly recommend paying according to the rules as they are... because an errata may not come if they don't see reason to. Perhaps this is the intended mechanic of the cards.

As for the promo staying something different than the rules - welcome to gaming... the rules matter, not the promotional.