Bashing soak is equal to the character's Stamina Trait. Lethal soak lends naturally tough characters some degree of protection based on their Stamina rating. Each may be increased by appropriate Knacks and armor.

All characters can resist a certain degree of physical punishment; doing so is called “soaking” damage. Your character's “soak” is based on his Stamina. Characters soak one die of bashing damage per point of Stamina (reflecting the body's natural resilience to such attacks). Lethal soak lends naturally tough characters some degree of protection based on their Stamina rating. Armor can improve a character's ability to soak damage.

The soak rating subtracts automatically from your attacker's total damage adds before you subtract damage dice.

However, even if your soak is higher than your attacker's damage effect, your opponent still rolls one die. This applies as a bashing damage effect even if the original attack was lethal. This reflects that the attack was little more than a glancing blow, inflicting a minor cut or bruise but causing no lasting damage.

Certain Knacks and increase a character's soak.

Simply put, armor adds to your characters soak. The armor's rating combines with the base soak for the purposes of reducing damage. Light armor offers and small amount of protection, but it generally doesn't greatly hinder mobility. Heavy armor provides a lot of protection, but reduces flexibility.

Some Armor is designed to shield against bashing damage, some against lethal - and some protect against both. Armor is not indestructible. If the damage effect from a single attack equals twice the armor's rating (prior to applying soak), the armor is destroyed.

Armor types, their ratings and other specifics are here.