Okay, a couple of questions: the first about wounding:
So, if my size is +0, then every 5 points of damage that get past my soak cause a light wound? Okay, if my soak is 10, and I take 15 damage, I get a light wound. But what if during one round of combat, I take 13 damage (3 points over my soak), and then I take 12 damage the second round (2 points over my soak). That's a total of 5, do I then get a light wound? If not, does that mean that if my soak is 10, I could get hit by an attack dealing 14 damage over and over and just be fine? Could someone type out a quick combat example showing the soak/damage/wound system; all the combat examples in the book only show attacks that either don't get through soak, or that do enough damage to inflict a wound. Nothing in-between.
Finally, magic damage: I read somewhere that the rules for magic damage are different, but couldn't find them anywhere in the Arm5 book. How does magical damage work with soak?
The main table you want to refer to is Damage Table on page 171. Any combat damage that exceeds your soak does a wound: if it exceeds it by 1 to 5 points then you get a Light Wound, if it exceeds it by 6 to 10 points then you get a Medium Wound, etc. So every attack you describe in the paragraph above deals a Light Wound. It's theoretically possible to have any number of Light Wounds and still survive, but each one gives a cumulative -1 penalty to all your rolls, so sooner or later bad things are going to happen.
This is hard to track down, for sure. The relevant pages are page 181 (Injuries - Non-combat Damage Total and Non-combat Soak Total), supplemented by page 116 (Spell Damage).
Imagine that you shoot a Pilum of Fire at me. Assuming you cast the spell successfully, the pilum automatically hits me (no attack roll needed). The Pilum of Fire description (page 140) says it does +15 damage, which means a stress die +15. Say you roll a 7 - your Damage Total is 22. Let's say my Soak is +6, so I roll a stress die too; I roll a 4, so my Soak Total is 10. The difference is 22-10=12, which means that you've just inflicted a Heavy Wound on me (it's in the 11 to 15 range). Ouch
See, that's something I didn't know; anywhere it says +(number), it means add that number to a stress die? Even in melee combat, is soak equal to your soak plus a stress die?
Given that page 172 of the corebook specifically mentions that Soak isn't rolled, I assume the mention of a stress die for Soak above is either a houserule or an oversight.
If damage is given as +(number) it means stress die + number.
Soak is expressedly not rolled (just subtracted), except aganst non-combat damage, which includes spells, including spells cast in combat.
Confused yet? Don't worry, that's close to being the worst piece of logic in the game
Litpho, the page you're looking for is p. 181 in the core book.
As a mnemonic for the Soak rules, I like to remember: everybody gets 1 stress die roll against possible damage. In combat, that roll happens with your Defense, so you don't need one with the Soak part of the formula. Not in combat, the roll happens with your Soak. (Not trying to justify why the rules are good or bad - just trying to remember what they actually are.)
And don't worry, I missed the Soak + roll against spells rule for many years....
Although, this isn't true with a significant group of spells. If the spell goes against defense instead of magic resistance, you get your defense roll then your soak roll since Attack Advantage isn't used.
True enough (ArM5 p86, and note the erratum). Although one could say that the Aiming Roll doesn't have anything to do with the magnitude of the damage, just whether it occurs, and thus adheres to the above mnemonic. But at this point it's no harder to memorize the rule itself....
. Learn something every day 8) .