When you deal damage with some Pierce amount, does the damage that goes through cause of pierce count as being up against the armor or is it completely ignored and all leftover damage is applied to the armor?

For example I deal 6 damage, 2 pierce against armor 4. Does the pierce deal 2 damage and then leftover 4 damage gets absorbed by armor, or do you deal the 6 damage against the armor with 2 going through, and 2 more for going over the 4 armor, for 4 total damage?

Pierce does not deal damage.

For every point of pierce that you have in an attack, one level of your opponent's armor is ignored. So if you have 6 damage and 2 Pierce against a 4 armor creature, the first thing you do is calculate the armor (4 armor - 2 Pierce = 2 Armor). Then, you subtract this from the damage as normal (6 damage - 2 Armor = 4 wounds).

You can never have negative armor, so if you were to do the same attack vs a creature with only 1 armor, the attack would still only deal 6 wounds (1 Armor - 2 Pierce = 0 Armor; 6 damage - 0 Armor = 6 wounds).

Thanks for the example as I found the 'ignore' wording ambiguous. Pierce reduces armour 1-for-1 to a minimum of 0.

It makes more sense when you look at the later cards. Pierce seems not too wonderful when you look at the one-for-one shots, but it quickly builds up with Copper and higher treasures... when one surge equals 2 pierce. It's not uncommon to get something crazy (My wife regularly gets around 8-10 pierce with the Crystalize rune).

(Wounds Value) - [(Armor Value) - (Pierce Value)] = Damage

StarBurn said:

** given that [(Armor Value) - (Pierce Value)] >= 0

wounds value - Max[(Armor Value) - (Pierce Value), 0] = Damage

I was just trying to make a simple math thingy...not a program XD...lawl

but yeah you can't reduce armor to -3 or any other value below 0.

So what about in this situation:

I have pierce 1, and do 2 wounds to a target with 6 armor.

how does this work out?

It looks something like that 2 wounds - 5 armor [(6 base armor) - (1 pierce)] = 0 becouse you not breakthrough enemy armor. Simple.

or you are not breaking through enough of the enemy's armor. Pierce ignores X amount of armor. If there is still enough left then I would think the damage would still be nagated.

Yea, you breakthrough 1 armor from 1 pierce, but as you said it isn't enough to make damage.

Don't forget that Pierce only reduces armour, not shields.

So if you have an attack that does 3 damage with pierce 6, and you have 1 point of armour and a shield that prevents 2 damage, one point of pierce cancels the armour leaving three points to get through, but your shield can still block two of them leaving only a single point of damage (despite there still being 5 "spare" points of pierce left).

Shield blocks only pure damage done to you after armor and damage counting so if you get damage with shield you can always take some amount of it (depends whats shield are you using).

ok since this seems to be getting out of hand again, use this handy chart

You have an attack that will deal X damage with Y pierce to a monster that has Z armor:

X damage
Y pierce
Z armor

Step 1: Pierce and Armor
Subtract the pierce value from the armor value
Z - Y = A

Step 2: Decide if more math will be needed
If A is a positive number, ie the Armor value (Z) is larger than the Pierce value (Y) then goto step 3
If A is zero or negative, then your Pierce (Y) went through all of the enemy's armor (Z). This monster takes the full attack (X) damage of the attack

Step 3: More Math Yay
The remaining step is to apply the damage to the armor
You do this for every attack (and when you have no pierce at all or when your Pierce only goes through part of the monster's armor)
X - A (from step 2, above) = B
If B is positive, this means that your attack damage + pierce (X+Y) has overcome the armor (Z) and deals some damage (B). Monster loses B wounds.
If B is zero or negative, this means that the armor is too thick. (X+Y<Z) The monster laughs as your weapon sticks out of his armor/bounces off harmlessly. Monster takes 0 damage.

The consensus of those who are confident they are right is that pierce affects armor before applying damage. My original interpretation was different, siding with the concept that pierce would always allow some damage to sneak through. The word "ignore" is what led me to that conclusion, as I feel that "ignoring" armor is different from "reducing" armor.

"An attack with Pierce ability ignores 1 point of armor for each rank of pierce it has."

I find this interpretation much more interesting, as it creates a more significant distinction between +damage and pierce, and it makes shields more interesting as well.

But I would like to play the way the designer intended, if nothing else for balance reasons. So my question is, has Kevin or FFG actually made a public ruling on this controversy? If so, can someone point me to their ruling?

thanks!
pfd

Pierce
An attack with the Pierce ability ignores 1 point of
armor for each rank of Pierce it has. Thus, an attack
with Pierce 3 ignores 3 points of armor. Shields are not
affected by the Pierce ability.

It doesn't say " allows 3 points of damage to get through before applying armor ", it says " ignore 3 points of armor ", meaning " treat 3 points of armor as if they didn't exist ". That is the usual definition of " ignore ", I believe.

Seems pretty simple to me.

As far as I know, there is no official ruling; partly stemming from the fact that until now, no one has felt they needed one.

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

God, I know I'm going to sound like a complete a**hole right now and I don't want to but...

I don't understand the difficulty in just subtracting the Pierce rank from your armor, and that's your new armor for the purpose of the attack. I suppose I got used to it because I was playing Kirga with Eagle Eye and for the entire Copper level I rolled "6 Pierce 2".

I also dont know what the big deal is, and why "an official ruling" is needed.

Pierce is simple. It is clear in the rules, there is no need for any official ruling because it is obvious.

Each rank of Pierce reduces armour by 1.

So if you do 10 damage with pierce 3 and the foe has 7 armour, then that armour is reduced by 3 (because of the pierce) and is now a value of 4. 10 damage minus the 4 armour means 6 wounds.

Anybody who interprets Pierce a different way is wrong!

Its because people can sometimes get caught up on rules language rather than thinking of the common sense interpretation of the rule. I know I've done it before many times, and Descent sadly is full of them.

If you have trouble with Pierce, simply take a pen and cross out the word "ignores" and change it to "reduces" and Pierce suddenly becomes much clearer.

Hello again,

Big Remy, there is no need for you to feel like an a-hole. I appreciate you trying to clear things up.

While I have adopted the common interpretation of pierce expressed in this thread, I have not adopted the position that the intent of the designer is crystal clear. I also do not agree that one interpretation is common sense and the other is not. Why would it be so nonsensical to interpret pierce in the alternate fashion? No more nonsensical than bleed, which ignores armor completely. If pierce wasn't such a common ability, I wouldn't care so much. But as pierce is used almost every turn, I would appreciate a ruling. And then I will be happy and others can say, "See, I told you so!"

If you believe that the wording of pierce is completely unambiguous, that is convenient for you. If you believe that it is ambiguous but you can read the designer's mind, that again is convenient, not to mention very powerful of you. If you are like me, you see some ambiguity in the text and desire clarification from the source, but in the mean time you move along using the general consensus of the confident. In board games, any of those attitudes will work.

cheers,

pfd

Bleed completely makes sense.

Ferrox like to go for the hands, and as well all know no adventurer worth his measure wears gloves because they can cause you to drop you weapons

So the alternative interpretation is what, that damage cannot be reduced to less than your ranks of Pierce due to the target's armor? Thus, if you've got Pierce 2 , and you roll at least 2 damage, then you inflict at least 2 damage no matter how much armor the target has?

First off, I think that if all you had were the basic mechanics and the name "pierce," that would be a reasonable guess at what the ability might do. So I can see where you'd get the idea.

However, that does not even resemble the actual text for the Pierce ability in the rulebook:

" Pierce: An attack with the Pierce ability ignores 1 point of armor for each rank of Pierce it has. Thus, an attack with Pierce 3 ignores 3 points of armor."

Your suggested rule means that Pierce 3 could penetrate anywhere from zero to infinity points of armor depending on the situation, and it doesn't so much ignore the armor as smuggle a fixed amount of damage past it. I don't see any possible way of reading the given text that is consistent with your alternative rule. Sorry.

Additionally, the alternate rule where Pierce means something like "minimum damage" ends up making lots of variables not matter in lots of situations. For example, hellhounds cannot possibly inflict more than 3 damage without a special bonus (like command or doom), so "Pierce 3" isn't much different from "Pierce infinity." Alternately, on the Manticore, it would be rare to roll less damage than your Pierce ranks, and also very rare to roll damage exceeding your Pierce ranks plus the target's armor, so this rule would make their damage almost constant. There would be lots of situations where having more Pierce ranks or more armor wouldn't actually help you in the slightest. So while the rule is possibly more interesting in principle, in practice I think it reduces variability and tactical choice and produces a more boring game, at least for the stats actually assigned to monsters, heroes, and equipment.