abstract
| - Armor is material that is worn over the body to prevent or reduce damage from an attack. It is divided into the two categories based on the skill needed to effectively wear each: Light Armor and Heavy Armor. There are approximately 700 pieces of armor in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. There are 70 full sets of armor and 100 custom pieces. Armor rating affects the percent of damage one takes from physical attacks. For example, with an armor rating of 20, one would take 80% damage from physical attacks. The max armor rating one can get is 85, even if their armor or any shield effects adds up to more. Wearing any kind of armor will lower one's spell effectiveness, which is determined by the number of armor pieces they wear and their skill level in it. At Journeyman level in the armor skills, wearing any armor piece will put the Spell effectiveness at 95% which cannot be increased further. At Master mastery level, with the combined perks of their respective skills, the best types of Light and Heavy armor offer the same overall level of protection, both with no movement penalties and no weight for armor one is wearing, so they are essentially the same at end-game—unless they would want to carry multiple sets of enchanted armor for different situations, in which case Light armor is superior. However, Light armor requires that all equipped pieces of armor be Light, so they cannot make use of certain powerful pieces of Heavy armor like the Escutcheon of Chorrol.
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