The armour system was modified to be a bit more realistic.
Essentially, the type of armour you are wearing, along with
its material, now has an impact on the amount of damage
received in combat. (Hah, a pun - has an impact, in combat...
get it?)

So a leather bowtie will no longer offer as good protection
against hits as an iron collar, nor will you get very far
in just a pair of leather pants. Unless ofcourse you're into
that kind of kinky stuff and getting your arse kicked.

You can view your armour coverage with the 'eq' command.

The net effect of the change is that with decent armour,
you will take less damage than before. With no armour,
you will take roughly the same amount of damage as before.
However, it is likely that in the future, especially bigger
mobs will learn to take advantage against ill protected
adventurers in quite gruesome ways.

Credits, complaints, comments and bugreports to Lampsa for
this addition.

++ Gore