Armor comes in many shapes and sizes. There are three types of armor available; light, medium, and heavy. Light armor is geared towards mages, medium armor is geared towards stamina users, and heavy armor is the most protective type of armor, and it is geared towards frontline warriors. There are no limits to what armor you can wear, you can wear any armor or equip any weapon regardless of race, class or alliance.
In a switch back to the older gameplay of Oblivion and Morrowind, armor will degrade in combat and other circumstances (such as dying and respawning). There are repair kits that you can carry around to make repairs in the field, or you can pay any merchant to do the work for you. Previously, a single piece of armor’s rating would gradually decrease as it degraded. As of patch 2.1.5, a single piece of armor’s rating stays the same until it is fully damaged, after which its rating will be zero until repaired.
Armor is split into seven body sections, with different types for Light, Medium, and Heavy armors: hats, helmets and helms for the head; epaulets, arm cops and pauldrons for the shoulders; robes (or jerkins), jacks and cuirasses for the torso; gloves, bracers and gauntlets for the hands; sashes, belts and girdles for the waist; breeches, guards and greaves for the legs; and shoes, boots and sabatons for the feet. In addition, there are four more equipment slots for a disguise/costume, two rings and an amulet, as well as two hand slots. A shield can be equipped in one of the hands to add to the armor rating and allow the use of One Hand and Shield skills.