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 Oblivion. There are 70 full sets of armor and 100 custom pieces.
The armor rating affects the percent of damage you take from physical attacks. For example, with an armor rating of 20, you would take 80% damage from physical attacks. The max armor rating you can get is 85, even if your armor or any shield effects adds up to more. Wearing any kind of armor will lower your spell effectiveness, which is determined by the number of armor pieces you wear and your skill level in it. At Journeyman level in the armor skills, wearing any armor piece will put the Spell effectiveness at 95% which can't be increased further.
At 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 you are wearing, so they are essentially the same at end-game -- unless you 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 you can't make use of certain powerful pieces of Heavy armor like the Escutcheon of Chorrol.
 Light armor mainly includes (in order by least to most defense):
It also includes:
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 Heavy armor mainly includes (in order by least to most defense):
It also includes:
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- Like with weapons, there are armor pieces that are completely useless in terms of actual use and are only displayed for decorative purposes: Ceremonial Armor.
For a list of enchanted armor, see Category:Enchanted armor