Challenges and duels
From Legend of the Five Rings Rules
[edit] Challenges and Duels
[edit] Challenges
A challenge is an effect that can create a duel: an individual confrontation between two personalities controlled by different players.
An effect creating a challenge will specify a personality to issue the challenge, known as the challenger. That personality’s controller is also said to be issuing the challenge, and to be the challenger.
An effect creating a challenge will specify a personality to receive the challenge, known as the challenged Personality. That personality’s controller is said to be the challenged player.
A challenge fails and has no effect if its two Personalities are controlled by the same player, or if either card in the duel is not a Personality.
If a Personality involved in a challenge or duel leaves play during it, the challenge or duel ends immediately without resolution. In particular, Focus Effects that have not yet resolved at that point do not resolve at all.
Effects may substitute one Personality for another in a challenge or duel. This does not change the original targeting of the challenge. The new Personality carries out the remaining steps instead of the original one, goes through resolution and takes the consequences of winning or losing.
Once the two Personalities are selected, the challenge begins.
After the challenge begins, if the effect that created the challenge allows it, the controller of the challenged personality may choose to refuse the challenge. Challenges are otherwise unrefusable by default.
If the challenged player chooses to refuse, the consequences of refusing, according to the challenge effect and any additional effects, are applied.
If the challenge is not refused, it is accepted and the two personalities enter the duel; they become the personalities involved in the duel.
[edit] Duels
In a duel, headings A through J occur in sequence.
A: The challenge ends, then the duel begins at the point when both Personalities enter the duel.
B: The challenger, then the challenged player, each form a focus pool, putting the top three cards of their own Fate deck face-down into a new, special focus pool area separate from their hand, which the player can look at. At this point each player also creates a focusing area where cards will go as they are focused.
If there are not enough cards to form a focus pool, it will contain fewer than three cards.
Cards in the focus pool can not be played.
C: The challenged player has the first choice to focus or strike. (EXCEPTION: See Glossary, Duelist.) If he or she focuses, or does something “instead of” focusing, the other player then has a choice to focus or strike. Players continue alternating in this way until one of them strikes.
- If the choice is to focus, the player takes a face-down card from his or her focus pool and puts it into his or her own focusing area, face-down. Focusing a card is not considered playing it, and the card’s costs, effects and traits that do not concern its being focused are irrelevant. The order in which cards were focused is sometimes relevant, and should be tracked.
- Once per duel, each player may focus a card from his or her hand instead of focus pool.
- If the choice is to strike, the duel goes to resolution. A player who cannot focus, or who cannot take some other effect instead of focusing, must strike; there is no “Pass” option in a duel.
Effects used instead of focusing take up the player’s opportunity to focus or strike. If an effect used instead of focusing is negated the player loses that opportunity. Effects used instead of focusing satisfy any requirement to focus imposed on the player.
D: Duel resolution begins after a player strikes.
E: Both players reveal (turn face up) all cards in their focusing area.
After this point, any cards that enter focusing areas in the duel do so face-up. [ADDED 24 Jul 07]
F: Focus Effects resolve. All Focus Effect traits on focused cards resolve, one after the other, in an order chosen by the active player. Focus Effects only resolve if the card is in the focusing area at the time it is chosen to resolve. If a new card enters the focusing area during this process, its Focus Effect must resolve before proceeding.
G: Both Personalities in the duel compute their score for the duel. Each Personality adds the total modified Focus Value of all cards in his focusing area to a score that equals his or her duel stat. This does not add to the Personality's stat itself.
The duel stat is Chi by default. Effects may specify a different stat to be used by one or both Personalities in the duel. A "duel of Force," for example, is a duel in which both Personalities use their Force instead of Chi.
H: If one Personality has a higher score than the other, he is the winner of the duel and the other is the loser. If their scores are the same, they tie, there is no winner, and both lose the duel.
If two Personalities tie, each of whom has an effect that makes him win tied duels, then both Personalities win the duel.
If an effect makes one Personality win the duel, this makes the other player lose, unless another effect alters that player’s outcome. Likewise, if an effect makes one Personality automatically lose the duel, this makes the other player win, unless another effect alters that player’s outcome.
This is the point at which a Personality “wins” or “loses” a duel.
I: Consequences of duel: After any winner or loser has been determined, carry out steps 1 through 5 in order:
- Apply any consequences of losing or winning that alter who loses or who wins.
- Apply any consequences of losing the duel from the action or trait that created the duel.
- Apply any consequences of losing the duel from other actions or traits.
- Apply any consequences of winning the duel from the action or trait that created the duel.
- Apply any consequences of winning the duel from other actions or traits.
Simultaneous consequences resolve in an order determined by the active player. There is no default consequence of winning or losing a duel.
Some effects may use the phrases "for winning a duel" or "for losing a duel." These phrases refer to another effect that was triggered by, or conditional on, winning or losing a duel -- such as, an honor gain "for winning a duel" refers to effects such as "If he wins the duel, gain 2 Honor" or "Reaction: After one of your Personality wins a duel: Gain 2 Honor." See Glossary, For.
J: Duel resolution now ends. Follow these final steps in order:
- Discard all cards in focusing areas.
- End any changes to their Focus Value.
- Each player in the duel simultaneously puts any cards remaining in his or her focus pool at the bottom of his or her Fate deck in any order.
- Focus pools and focusing areas cease to exist.
If a duel ends without resolution, the procedures in this step are still carried out. [ADDED Sept 13 2007]
The duel then ends.
[Order changed March 6 2008; again May 29 2008, separating the end of the duel from the end of resolution]
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