DRAGONSCALE CLOAK

BASE ITEM
CHEST
LEVEL 22

REQUIRES LEVEL 22

DRAGONSCALE CLOAK is body armor, wielded from level 22.

The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 22 ever drops one, and a hero below it banks the find rather than wearing it.

It is a pool base, so it climbs: the same shape returns later in the campaign as WYRMSCALE CLOAK and ELDER-SCALE CLOAK, at requirements the endgame can actually meet.

Scaled hide off something heraldry insists is mythical. In a place stocked by every legend that ever went missing, the scales are uncomfortably warm.

What it does

MATERIALMAIL, which turns 1.6× what the same piece would in cloth.
ALSO DEMANDS22 STRENGTH to wear — heavier materials want a bruiser inside them.
WEARS OUT150 hits taken before it falls silent. It is never destroyed — a worn-out piece still hangs on you contributing nothing until a repair kit brings it back.
SALVAGEPrecious material — the merchant pays four times what an ordinary piece of its worth fetches.

A fresh find in the hands of a hero who has spent no stat points — the piece itself, with nothing of the wielder in it. Your own STRENGTH, DEXTERITY or INTELLECT lifts these from there, as does an item level found deeper than the requirement.

Make quality

Every plain drop of this base rolls a make quality on top of the numbers above — the craftsmanship of that particular copy, stamped at the moment it drops and frozen for life. It scales the armor and the wear budget together, and it leads the name: a BROKEN DRAGONSCALE CLOAK and a PERFECT DRAGONSCALE CLOAK are the same base item and not the same find.

The bands overlap on purpose, so a good CRUDE can out-swing a poor NORMAL while a PERFECT always clears a NORMAL. Which one you get depends on the level of whatever dropped it: the two odds columns below are a level-1 killer and a level-60 one, and everything between is interpolated. Craftsmanship and magic are exclusive — a magic-or-better find is always normal make.

MAKE	ARMOR	SCALE	ODDS AT MLVL 1	ODDS AT MLVL 60
BROKEN	46–66	0.58–0.82×	20%	0%
CRUDE	58–78	0.73–0.97×	25%	6%
NORMAL	72–88	0.90–1.10×	52%	54%
SUPERIOR	82–102	1.03–1.27×	3%	28%
PERFECT	93–115	1.16–1.44×	0%	12%

What it becomes

The same shape comes back twice more, further down the campaign: an EXCEPTIONAL version and an ELITE one, generated from this base rather than authored beside it. They keep its look, its cadence, its reach and its arc; what changes is the level they ask for and the numbers priced onto the curve at it. A venue that pays this base pays its whole ladder, so a first-map find keeps dropping — as something else — into the endgame.

GRADE	REQUIRES	ARMOR	WEARS	MATERIAL
DRAGONSCALE CLOAK (normal)	22	80	150	MAIL
WYRMSCALE CLOAK	51	242	188	MAIL
ELDER-SCALE CLOAK	97	528	225	MAIL

Named items built on it

These relics wear this shape, with an authored block of bonuses on top — each on the rung of the ladder it names.

ACHILLEAN PLATEELDER-SCALE CLOAK
GORGONSCALE

DRAGONSCALE CLOAK, a base item chest in Ada's Trail, shown on the map of THE RIFT where it drops — DRAGONSCALE CLOAK — where it drops, in THE RIFT.

Where it comes from

THE RIFT carries it in its drop pool.
BOOT HILL carries it in its drop pool.
THE BUNKER carries it in its drop pool.

Every one of those pools carries WYRMSCALE CLOAK and ELDER-SCALE CLOAK along with it — the game expands a pool entry into its whole grade family at roll time — so the same venues keep paying this shape out at requirements 97 deep.