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In this section we'll be going over armor and how the different effects tied to them effect combat. One small difference in naming from D2 that often can confuse people is "Blocking" and "Block Rating". To clarify a bit I have renamed "blocking" (percent change to ignore all dmg) to Deflection. As well I have added a new stat called Block Rating which shows up on all shields. Block Rating (depending on proficiencies) determines how much damage reduction you gain from any given shield.

Defense Rating is a stat tied to all armor (not shields) and directly related to physical resistance. How much resistance you gain from a single defense rating point is dependant on if you are proficient in that armor (which depends on your class choices). At base, 1 point of Defense Rating = 1% resistance, with proficiency that is raised to 2% per Defense Rating.

Example: Full Plate has a Defense Rating of 15, so wearing it gives you a 15% physical resist. If you have the proficiency from a class you would instead have 30% physical resistance.

Block Rating is a stat tied to all Shields and directly relates to damage reduction. How much damage reduction you gain from a single point is dependant on if you are proficient in shields or not. At base, 1 point of Block Rating = 1 damage reduction, with proficiency you gain 2 per Block Rating,

Example: Tower Shield has Block Rating of 5, so wearing it gives you 5 damage reduction. If you where to have Shield Proficiency via a class you would instead gain 10 damage reduction from the shield.

Max Dex. Bonus (Maximum Dexterity Bonus) is the total AC you can gain from Dexterity while wearing armor. This is the Modifier bonus to AC from Dexterity, not the total Dexterity its self. So for instance a Max Dex. Bonus of 8 would allow only +8 ac from Dex (dex of 18), and any dex past that (19 or more) would have no further effects on your AC total. This will not in anyway effect AR gained from Dexterity while using a ranged or finessed weapon.

Arcane Cast Penalty (ACP) directly effects the cast delay while casting arcane spells, such as those cast from the mage classes. Each point of ACP directly translated into 1 second added onto the cast delay, so while it may take you at a base 1 full second to cast a single spell (half a second to cast + half a second of cast delay) if you where wearing say, leather armor with an ACP of 2 it would insted be 3 seconds total from start of casting to being able to cast again. ACP from Armor and Shield stack together to determin total penalty. Divine casting is not effected by this penalty, and there are some passives to ignore up to a certain amount of ACP.

Below are tables of all the armor and shields base stats. All items have no durability and thus do not need to be repaired.

GC	Armor	Prof.	AC	Defense Rating	Max Dex. Bonus	ACP
5	Padded	L	1	2	19	1
10	Leather	L	2	4	16	2
15	Hide	M	3	8	11	4
25	Studded L.	L	3	6	13	3
50	Chain Shirt	L	4	8	10	4
100	Scale Mail	M	5	10	8	5
150	Chain Mail	M	5	11	7	6
200	Breast Plate	M	6	12	5	6
200	Splint Mail	H	6	14	5	7
250	Banded Mail	H	6	16	4	8
300	Half-Plate	H	7	16	3	8
1500	Full Plate	H	8	20	1	10
1000	Elven Plate	M	6	12	7	4
600	Elven Light	L	4	8	12	2

GP: Gold Cost
AC: Armor Class
Prof.: Proficiency type
   L: Light
   M: Medium
   H: Heavy
ACP: Armor Cast Penalty
ACvR: Armor Class vs Ranged
Thorns: Physical damage to melee attackers