Which effect wins?

By Harzerkatze, in Rules Questions

Something the L5R system is not very clear about (as far as I can tell) is which effect wins when two effect have contrary outcomes.

For example, if I have cast Katana of Fire ("Damage inflicted by this weapon is supernatural rather than physical") und later make a (kata) attack with it.

- The Thunderclap Strike kata says "target suffers damage equal to your weapon's base damage". Since damage is undefined, doubtless that would be supernatural damage because of Katana of Fire.

- The Strike action says "you deal physical damage", which pretty obviously should be turned into supernatural damage, or the invocation would have almost no effect.

- The Flowing Water Strike kata deals Water Ring physical damage, which after a failed check is increased by the weapon's base damage. Is all that damage physical? Is the Water Ring damage physical und the weapon base damage supernatural? (is each lowered by its resistance, then?) Is all damage supernatural?

- The Crimson Leaves Strike kata deals Earth Ring physical damage. Does that become supernatural as well?

One could argue that "damage inflicted becomes supernatural" tops all other damage definitions. Or that "damage inflicted" only means where the base damage is referenced. One could argue that the Strike action is the basis and techniques are a higher level of rule that modify the basis, but that techniques have the same level and thus do not modify if they say contrary things. So in a Strike action, the damage changes to supernatural, but if a kata says it deals physical damage, that remains physical damage.

What do You say?

Both from wording, ingame logic and thematic logic, Katana of Fire means its always supernatural damage.

Basically, whenever you used your katana to do damage, its now supernatural.

The game rules arent watertight, and of course there is always somebody who can interpret something some other way. But strictly going by classic rules text analysis, Katana of Fire trumps the others because its an "always active" condition clearly connected to the use of the item in question.

If in doubt or if you want to go by thematic argument, read the fluff texts of each technique and decide if its actually the Katana doing the damage, or some other element. Whenever there is mention of the weapon, that means its supernatural instead.

If thats not enough for you, strictly text-wise, this is the way reads:

Thunderclap Strike = you obviously use the weapon for that damage, so its supernatural.

Strike action = all physical damage is supernatural, you strike with the weapon, thus it becomes supernatural

Flowing water strike = all physical damage is supernatural, thus in any case the entire damage is converted to supernatural because you use the weapon

Crimson Leaves Strike = did you attack with the Katana? In this case the "all physical damage is now supernatural" clause means that your physical earth ring damage also gets transmuted to supernatural.

The ONLY case in which this would not apply is if you did not use the Katana to attack ( even though holding it) by using the Kick weapon to trigger any of these katas. As Kick is a separate weapon (one of the two unarmed ones), it wouldnt convert even though you are holding the katana in your hand.

I think trying to cherrypick what "inflicted by this weapon" means has no basis within the rules. Its very simple: you pick a weapon to use, then you use an Attack action with it.

I would agree. If the weapon selected inflicts supernatural instead of physical damage, then if the kata uses a selected weapon, that effect would apply.