Soak is applied to most attacks that hit your character. Only those called "unsoakable" hits, mainly certain spells or prayers, will not be included. Soak represents how much damage will be absorbed by the items your character is wearing when she is hit. Soak is calculated as a percentage of the damage dealt to your character from a single hit. More about calculating Soak can be found below.

As you choose items of Soak Value for your character, be sure to follow the guidelines explained in the following table. They are born mostly from common sense, in that we can not wear more than one item on our head; we can only wear one suit of armor at a time; and we can only carry one shield. Only items that are specifically described as being able to be worn under or over another same sort of item can be overlapped. The accessories should be selected with some common sense also. You might buy a cloak and a cape, but not wear both together. You might select two shirts, but not wear both, because overlapping is strictly forbidden. You might purchase a pair of boots and a pair of sandals, but not wear both at the same time. Besides, you would look really silly. So, try to pick out accessories that don't overlap any other articles your character is already wearing. It's just that simple.

For each profession in Destiny, there is a maximum level of Soak allowed. Maximum Soak scores for most professions are shown in the table below. While your characters may wear more items for pure role playing reasons, the total amount of Soak will never rise past the maximum allowed. All items which do have either Soak or Evade values will be specifically identified as such. Not all items of clothing will have Soak value, and not all items with Soak will have Evade penalties. When looking at items either in a shop or on your character's items list, be sure to take note of any remarks made within parenthesis ( ). This will tell you exactly what the item is worth in terms of Soak and Evade.

As important as calculating Soak is, Evade penalties are equally important. Most items having Soak Value will also have a penalty for Evade. Evade is how quickly or likely your character is to avoid any oncoming attacks. It is extremely important, although not very likely, that your character not wear so many items with Evade penalties that your character's Evade Value falls below 1. At an Evade Value of 1, your character is just barely able to move about. Any less would mean your character is unable to move, and that is just not fun.

Each time a character is hit with a Soakable attack, that character's remaining Health Points are calculated. Performing the calculation can be easy, if you know the correct formula. There are three variables which can be plugged into a standard equation. You will need to know the current Health Points of the character being hit, the damage of the hit, and the Soak score of that same character. The first step is to multiply the damage by the percentage of Soak. Then we subtract that amount from the original damage. The result is subtracted from the current Health Points, and that leaves us with the remaining HP. In the case of the remaining HP being a fraction or decimal, the Health Point score is always rounded down.

Example: Bob has 20HP, 30% Soak and gets hit for 14 points of damage.

Step 1) 14 DMG * .30 Soak = 14.2 Soaked DMG

Step 2) 14 original DMG - 4.2 Soaked DMG = 9.8 DMG sustained

Step 3) 20HP - 9.8 Sustained DMG = 10.2HP

Step 4) 10.2HP rounds down to 10 remaining Health Points

Result: Bob is left with 10HP.