noob question on pierce and such

By Overlord4, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

heya, I've just got onto the badwagon of this awsome game though after our first couple of games as expected mistakes are made but one thing we could not agree on was how armor works when taking pierce damage.

I interpret it as this say the attack is 10 damage 4 pierce and the target has 6 armor, so 4 ignores leaving 6 damage to get reduced by the armor. resulting in 4 damage

or using same example the the 4 cancels out part of the 6 making it 2 reducing the damage to 8.

or are both wrong and if so what is more correct,

lastly on shields do they negate or reduce incomin pierce attacks before calculating or factored in to the total armor?

anyhelp on this would be sweet and prevent further arguments with the group im with

cheers

Your second option is correct. Pierce first reduces armor, then the damage is applied to the rest. 6 armor minis 4 Pierce, results in 2 armor remaining. The 10 damage are then applied against this, resulting in 8 damage getting through.

Having more pierce than armor has no additional effect. Let's say you're doing 6 damage, pierce 4. Your opponent has 2 armor. The pierce cancels the 2 armor completely, then the 6 damage are applied to 0 armor. All 6 damage get through.

As for shields, they are not affected by pierce. If the opponent had a shield that cancelled 2 damage, in the above example, he could reduce the damage from 6 to 4, even though there was pierce "left over".

thanks heaps for that :)

I always found the easiest way to apply Pierce damage was to add the Pierce Value to the Damage and then subtract the Armour Value. In cases where the Pierce Value is greater than the Armour Value, then only add a Pierce Value equal to the Armour Value.

You are making a common mistake about pierce.

There is no such thing as "Pierce Damage" or a "Pierce Attack".

When making an attack, before you factor in the target's armor, you subtract the amount of Pierce your attack has from the opponent's armor. The new number is their armor rating against that attack. If the result is a negative number, treat it as 0.

So if you are attacking a target with 6 armor, and you have Pierce 4, the target is treated as though he had 2 Armor for this attack.

So pierce really has nothing to do with the damage; just the armor.

Wild-Duck said:

I always found the easiest way to apply Pierce damage was to add the Pierce Value to the Damage and then subtract the Armour Value. In cases where the Pierce Value is greater than the Armour Value, then only add a Pierce Value equal to the Armour Value.

Sorry should have read as follows -

I always found the easiest way to apply Pierce was to add the Pierce Value (PV) to the Damage Rolled (DR) and then subtract the Armour Value (AV) , this will then equal the Damage Done (DD) . In cases where the Pierce Value is greater than the Armour Value , then simply apply the Damage Rolled as the Damage Done (DD) . So the equation should read DR + (PV - AV) = DD, where (PV - AV) < 0

An example being: As The Overlord, the Copper level Master Deep Elf in my thrall, rolls 6 DR and has PV = 4 . He is attacking Nanok of the Blade who is wearing a Ring of Protection +1 so his AV = 5 .

DR + (PV - AV) = DD ---> 6 + (4 - 5) = 5 Damage Done