PRAIRIE IRON

BASE ITEM
WEAPON
RANGED
LEVEL 17

REQUIRES LEVEL 17

PRAIRIE IRON is a ranged weapon, wielded from level 17. DEXTERITY is the stat that scales it.

The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 17 ever drops one, and a hero below it banks the find rather than wearing it.

A stage prop off the first hand down, loaded with live rounds nobody told the actors about. The park's safety board was also a hand.

What it does

PRICED FORAbout 1 target a swing. That is what the damage budget assumes it reaches, which is why a wide weapon carries a smaller blow than a narrow one of the same level.
CRIT WEIGHTA critical hit lands for 2.05× — a flat trait of the ranged class, the same on every weapon in it. Your build earns the crit CHANCE; the class fixes what a crit is worth.
SALVAGEIt melts down: the merchant pays double what an ordinary piece of its worth fetches.

It feeds on bullets, one round per trigger pull however many projectiles that pull throws. In exchange it never wears out and never needs a repair kit — it runs dry instead, and the hero puts it away for whatever he can still fire.

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 damage and the wear budget together, and it leads the name: a BROKEN PRAIRIE IRON and a PERFECT PRAIRIE IRON 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	DAMAGE	SCALE	ODDS AT MLVL 1	ODDS AT MLVL 60
BROKEN	30–43	0.58–0.82×	20%	0%
CRUDE	38–50	0.73–0.97×	25%	6%
NORMAL	47–57	0.90–1.10×	52%	54%
SUPERIOR	54–66	1.03–1.27×	3%	28%
PERFECT	60–75	1.16–1.44×	0%	12%

PRAIRIE IRON, a base item weapon in Ada's Trail, shown on the map of BOOT HILL where it drops — PRAIRIE IRON — where it drops, in BOOT HILL.

Where it comes from

BOOT HILL hands it over on the scripted opening drop, around 30–80 kills in.