I want to wear Ulfric's clothes but still offer myself a certain level of protection in the game so I had a question...

How does the armor work in the game? If I wore Ulfric's clothes with armored boots and gauntlets would the level of protection they add stack up or does it offer a certain level of protection for each individual area?

Each piece of armor adds to the total armor rating which can be seen while in your inventory down at the bottom of the screen, same as your weapon damage rating while in the weapons inventory.

Unfathomable Depths has a quest reward that boosts the total armor rating as does the Lord Stone.

The pieces of armor that you wear do stack together and contribute to your overall armor rating. There are no locational damage considerations.

Edit: Oops, Haggar beat me to it.