Search fails again so not sure if this was already asked.

I have come across the confusion again with soak.

If i get 3 hammers on the conservative side the damage ignores soak.

Now is this the armour soak or the total soak (armour+toughness)?

Having the same name for 2 different meanings is painful.

The book says soak for armour soak. And says soak for toughness + armour soak. I am adding the word armour in as its not used in the book.

I always count soak as "armour soak" when I am told to ignore it. Otherwise, it is indistinguishable from just adding damage.

For example, an item with pierce 1 has no special effect on an unarmored target while it does +1 damage to an armored target. If it effected toughness as well, it might as well just say "+1 damage", since you will not run into enemies with 0 toughness.

Actions and weapons that have rules for ignoring soak usually have an armor piercing flavour to them. Either through being able to find openings in the armor, punch through the armor or magically pass through it.

Thanks Ralzar.

Your reply makes perfect sense. I will now take soak to mean armour soak.

At one point in the book they called the Soak = Armour soak + Toughness = Damage Reduction. Which is a much better name