If the armor is ignored can the Hero still use the Armor ability and just the +1 armor etc is ignored?

Im pretty sure "Ignoring Armor" means you ignore ALL armor, not just the worn armor, but ALL armor stats, even armor from an ability card. That is our understanding of the rule, and how we have been playing.

I agree with hawk... All your armor is ignored when "Ignoring Armor" status message comes up.

Yes Definately

Initial Armour + 1 Armour - All Armour Still = 0 Armour

Hope this helps

You also can't use a shield as far as I know because they say that they can't be used against attacks that ignore armour

There is actually an important ambiguity with "ignoring armor," arising from the fact that "armor" has two totally different technical definitions in Descent. For further details, see: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/306797

I personally think it should ignore ALL armor, no matter what type it is, maybe there is no mistake on the game designers at all, and when it says "Ignore Armor" it means ignore armor...ALL of it, no matter what magical effects, spells, bells or whistles it has. That makes the most sense to me, and then there is no problem with they way they designed the rules.

Refer to you do, the snazzy cloaks, assume I.

While the damage may ignore the armor, consensus in previous boards was that the nifty additional effect of the armor (roll dice to avoid wounds) was all comfy and intact, making it the armor to have if you have some maniacal Overlord trying to trap the snot out of you.

I have ruled in my group that the cloaks ability still works even if numerically not doing anything armour wise.

Traps otherwise can really easily kill magic/ranged people (such as Lyssa), and I have found this unfair as they generally use the cloaks due to not wanting speed reduction/inabilty to use runes. It seems to work.

Has there ever been an official ruling?

the cloaks we are all refering to are...

Armor...they are items of Armor, period.

A. Armor :Cloak of Decption

1. Armor Value: 1
2. Special Ability: Roll for actual damage taken

If i have a trap that ignores armor, then why would the special ability work on an item i am ignoring? If i am ignoring letter A, then i most certain MUST ignore it's properties as well, you simply can not ignore part of one and not the other.....

Now, if my trap card said "ignore all Armor VALUES", then we would know that we are not ignoring the whole peice of armor, but instead we are simply ignoring it's basic ability to reduce damage.

If my fist has the special ability to do fire damage, but i punch something that is immune to all fist attacks, the special ability of my fist is useless because it is a part of my fist, the same why the special ability is part of the armor. You ignore the armor, you are forced to ignore all parts of it.

Yes thats true, but I have interpreted 'ignore armour' to apply to the numerical value, since the term armour generally refers to the 'armour rating/value' of the target creature/hero/mushroom.

See, why I would like an official ruling

Thanks for the discussion though

By the way before someone points it out, armor is spelt armour in Australia

Based on what has gone before, it would be easier to say "Treat the target's total armour as zero" than to "ignore armour". This actually makes sense then.

According to this post, Kevin Wilson himself said that the special ability of cloaks still applies to cases that ignore armor; meaning that "ignore armor" means "ignore armor values" rather than "armor items".

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/3243.page#62327

Whelp...i guess i was wrong. Man, and i thought my logic was good to. That's allright, my heroes will appreciate it, and i'll just have to get more expansions to be able to beat my heroes more easily, and i was planning on it anyway......hmmmmm lava

What bout Nanuk? He cannot wear armor but has kind of "armor" dice?

It's an Armour value of "*", but an Armour value non the less.

I already explained this in the linked thread, but apparently no one actually follows links to previous discussion on a topic, so I'll reiterate:

"Armor" means two things in Descent. It's a statistic that all figures have that reduces damage taken from attacks. It's also a type of item.

If "ignores armor" is referring to the statistic, then other effects of your armor items, such as the ability to randomly negate wounds on a cloak or bonuses like "immune to burn" all still apply. If someone wearing the Dragon Scale Mail falls onto Poison Spikes (WoD treachery card), they take full damage, but don't get poisoned, because the Dragon Scale Mail makes them immune to poison.

If "ignores armor" refers to the item type, then armor (the statistic) received from other sources (such as your character base armor, skills, etc.) would all still apply. This would mean that tank characters would generally not take any damage from falling into pits or the Spiked Pit trap card, could very plausibly take no damage from Crushing Blocks, would not suffer the initial damage from Scything Blades, Dart Fields, or lava obstacles, etc. I don't think anyone actually endorses this.

If "ignores armor" actually means both definitions, then the guy writing the rules is either extremely confused or is deliberately trying to confuse us, because he's trying to use two definitions of a single word at once . That's a really perverse reading.

So the first option is the only one that I've seen any defensible argument support. There is also apparently official word that that was the intent (as already noted in both threads), though tracking that back to the original pronouncement may not be practical.

Aspiring game designers, take note: DON'T. DO. THIS. Use different words for different concepts in your game, no matter how appropriate a single word sounds for two different things.

Antistone said:

This still isn't as good as the two conflicting definitions of "an empty space".