Just something I'm wondering, having only played the earlier games.

In that later Might and Magic games, starting with Might and Magic 6, how does magic work? In particular:
* Does armor affect your chance of avoiding physical attacks?
* Does armor affect the damage you take when you do get hit by physical attacks?
* Does armor provide any protection against magic?
* Does armor break as easily as in Xeen (where it would break anytime you are reduced to -10 HP)?
* Is it worth bothering with armor, or does it not provide enough benefit for the work involved? (In Xeen I've found the game to be more fun if I simply ignore armor entirely.)

You can read about it here:

https://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm/mechanics
https://grayface.github.io/mm/mechanics/ (seems to be new site of Grayface)

Armor is definitely one of the deciding factors when it comes to survival. On its own it means nothing, you need to have good Resists to be covered on all fronts.

Armor doesn't reduce damage taken, it only reduces chances of taking damage.
Armor can come with Resist affixes. Resists increase chances to REDUCE spell damage taken to certain degree.
Equipment can also come with Immunity affixes to various status ailments, including some (but not all) 1-hit-kill effects.

I love MM 6 the most among MM6-MM9, but sadly I must say that i lacks one thing that MM 7 did great: Protection from Magic spell mechanics. It protects against number of 1-hit-kill effects when attack hits you. If attack misses you (due to Armor or Resists), the charge of that spell isn't spent. Protection from Magic didn't defend against 1-hit-kill effects in MM6 sadly.

Equipment is broken by some specific monsters but it is easy to repair by Repair Skill (no penalties, this skill just needs to be high enough for the broken piece of armor).

In short words, Armor is useful, because it allows to avoid a lot of problems with status ailments and 1-hit-kill effects. Especially so in MM7. You need to watch visual warnings about breakage of Armor (and remember which exactly monsters can do that).

I usually just get the follower that fixes your armor for 2% of gold found, I'm not sure on the math but I'd imagine it saves a lot of money in the long run

I really don't think that follower is all that good. Money-wise you should consider that he can be replaced with someone who gives you 10% gold, so in the long run, you'll be behind by taking him instead. But money stops being an issue quickly in this game, so you're really better off taking someone who's more useful (XP, spells, magic... etc). Plus he only works on a subset of items, so you still need to pay for weapons breaking. Or better yet, just have your fighter learn Repair.

I mean your weapons break very rarely and the amount of xp you gain goes up so much by level increases that gaining some extra really doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. I guess its mostly just the fact that its a really comfy boi to have since you don't have to move items around to repair em etc. same for the identification npc

(M&MVI) Mordred always breaks and usually more than once. And before I have the skills to fix it.
Ouch

Have you tried Mordred without armor? Or, if this boss breaks weapons, how about using magic instead of physical attacks, with your weapons unequipped? (Or is there a way to get good unarmed damage? There isn't in the earlier games.)

I never looked that closely at the stats in Armor but if your character is knocked out in M&MVI, the armor is often broken as well. So I assume w./o armor the Player would be DOA.
As mentioned certain Top Tier Opponents can break your equipment. Captains and Veterans come to mind for early such enemies--- both Third Level opponents of their respective group.
And Veterans seem to love to break Modred the vampire knife. Ain't cheap to fix.
Though I see magic more powerful than brawn in M&MVI (as it hits 99% of the time), I try to save as much blue goo as possible to complete the quest in a more timely manner. Which means going physical once in a while. That's when Veterans start breaking things.

In World of Xeen, that's also the case that being knocked out will usually break your armor; however, it does not mean that you're severely vulnerable without armor. In fact, there are entire dungeons where none of the enemies do physical damage; hence, armor is no help at all (unless it happens to spawn with useful affixes), but being reduced to -10 HP will still break it.

Honestly, I would suggest trying to play without armor and see how much of a difference it makes; does it make the game much harder, or do things still feel mostly the same?

Give it a try and see what happens. Though treasure chest explosions might get me the River Styx fairly often

But does armor help against that at all? (In the Xeen games it does not, unless the armor has an affix that protects against the element used by the trap; if it's Physical damage, the only way to reduce the damage is Power Shield.)

This Board may answer your question. As mentioned before, in MMVI, chance of hitting is reduced w armor as opposed to damage taken (with reduction of damage added in MMVII) according to:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/70943/enemy-to-hit-numbers-vs-ac-in-might-and-magic-6-7-8

Thing is, last time I checked chest traps don't make attack rolls (unless MM6 changed that).

If what you said is true, interesting that MM7 changed things so that armor reduces damage; I wouldn't expect that significant a change between the two games. Then again, apparently MM7 limits skill rank by class, unlike MM6 where anyone can grandmaster any available skill (or MM5 where the mechanic doesn't exist at all).

There is no grandmaster level in M&M6, but otherwise, yes, anyone can master skills that are available for them to learn.

It wasn't phrased with enough clarity on the forums, but there was no changes in Armor mechanics in MM7 and beyond.

The damage reduction part comes from Armor skills, so if your skill in wearing Plate is at Master level, you will get 50% physical damage reduction, if your skill level is 7 or 57. Grandmaster in Chain Skill gets 25% physical damage reduction. Shield Grandmaster gives you 50% missile damage reduction.

So in MM7+ if your AC is 10 or if it is 20000 you still get hit for the same amount of damage if hit connects.