Hello,

We are new to the game, and I have searched through some FAQs and the Headless Hollow site looking for a definitive answer to our question.

We have two conflicting ways on the reading of the Pierce rule. One way believes that Pierce is unmitigatable damage, and the other that it simply lowers armor value for that attack.

Examples:

I hit you for 1 damage with Pierce of 1. You have, like, a zillion armor. However, because Pierce 1 ignores 1 point of armor for the attack, you still take one point of damage.

Or;

I hit you for 2 with Pierce 1. You have 3 armor. The Pierce (effectively) lowers your armor to 2. However, I still only hit you for 2 minus your (now) 2 armor equals no damage this turn.

Does that make sense what I'm asking? Thank you so much for an answer to our dilemna.

Your second answer is correct. Pierce lowers the armor of the target.

So, an attack hits with 4 damage and pierce 2 against a target with 5 armor. The target's armor is reduced to 3 due to pierce 2. Then 4 damage is applied to 3 armor, so the target takes 1 wound. At this point, the target may apply other items (shield, cloak, etc) that may absorb that 1 wound. If they don't have anything, then the target takes one wound marker.