So I recently came across the Mage class in Dungeon World as a freebie given for an optional class pack of three classes. It is supposed to be a replacement for the standard Wizard. Now the relevant parts to my question are:
The Wizard spell Magic Missile:
Projectiles of pure magic spring from your fingers. Deal 2d4 damage to one target.
The Wizard spell Fireball:
You evoke a mighty ball of flame that envelops your target and everyone nearby, inflicting 2d6 damage which ignores armor.
Now, according to the Classes page, subsection Damage:
Add the ignores armor tag if the source of the damage is particularly large or if the damage comes from magic or poison.
These two make me think that Magic Missile would ignore armor because it is magical by nature (magic damage type), and Fireball normally wouldn't ignore armor but for the fact that it explicitly states that it does. This leads me to believe that fire damage is typically subject to reduction from Armor, magical or otherwise, unless stated otherwise.
Now, let's approach the concept of armor as described here:
The Wizard's advanced move Arcane Ward:
As long as you have at least one prepared spell of first level or higher, you have +2 armor.
Compare this to the Mage's advanced move Arcane Ward:
You have +2 armor against magical attacks, and nearby allies have +1 Armor against magical attacks.
Neat! Magical defense. But wait, where does that leave fire damage? Now, to my knowledge, vanilla DW has no special concept of armor vs. magic that the Mage class introduces. It just has "armor". So I see the following possibilities for vanilla DW:
- Magic Missile ignores armor, as armor is ignored by magic damage.
and one of:
- Fire respects armor, as it isn't magic damage. (Unless stated otherwise)
- Fire ignores armor when it "comes from magic", and is emphasized when re-stated. Other fire damage respects armor.
With the concept of armor versus magic as introduced by the Mage, I see the following (renaming "armor versus magic" as "M.Armor"):
- Magic missile respects M.Armor as it is magic damage.
and one of:
- Fire ignores M.Armor as it is fire damage.
- Fire respects M.Armor when it "comes from magic", and ignores it otherwise.
- Fire respects M.Armor when it "comes from magic", and ignores it otherwise, unless, like Fireball it states that it ignores "armor" which we assume applies to both kinds of armor.
It looks like I have 2 × 3 = 6 possible rule combinations to choose from and I'm not sure which is to be honored. Which is the correct combination?