My last hardtain mtb had a fork failure, so I got a rigid fork and kept riding. I rode every trail I had ridden with suspension, but had to go a bit slower in some places. Then I started noticing pain in my arms and shoulders and neck that was worse when I was doing a lot of off road riding, and it subsided when I was road riding.
My advice - if you are actually planning on doing regular off-road riding, keep the suspension fork,