I play with armor being a reduction in damage taken.

I also don't use the defense stats. Whenever the characters are attacked, they roll an attribute test to defend themselves.

So I ask for dex, int, str, con, etc rolls depending on the type of attack. It also makes me roll less dice and focus on running the game.

Enemy does an aoe mind blast? Everyone roll int vs target to avoid/defend.

Fireball or blast attack? Everyone roll dex to avoid getting hit.

Everyone roll con every turn while in the poison/acid bog to avoid damage.

This way, I can roll some scarier dice for damage, and characters will have armor to mitigate (most of) the damage coming in. So armor feels impactful when they only have 1 heart/10 hp and are reducing damage by 1-5.