PRESSURE TROUSERS

BASE ITEM
LEGS
LEVEL 8

REQUIRES LEVEL 8

PRESSURE TROUSERS is leg armor, wielded from level 8.

The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 8 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 EVA TROUSERS and HARD-SUIT TROUSERS, at requirements the endgame can actually meet.

The lower half of an EVA suit, still holding pressure after fifty years. They overbuilt everything back then — it's half of why the ghosts up here still have gear worth taking.

What it does

MATERIALLEATHER, which turns 1.15× what the same piece would in cloth.
ALSO DEMANDS2 STRENGTH to wear — heavier materials want a bruiser inside them.
WEARS OUT100 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.

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 PRESSURE TROUSERS and a PERFECT PRESSURE TROUSERS 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	10–15	0.58–0.82×	20%	0%
CRUDE	13–17	0.73–0.97×	25%	6%
NORMAL	16–20	0.90–1.10×	52%	54%
SUPERIOR	19–23	1.03–1.27×	3%	28%
PERFECT	21–26	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
PRESSURE TROUSERS (normal)	8	18	100	LEATHER
EVA TROUSERS	33	51	125	LEATHER
HARD-SUIT TROUSERS	61	92	150	LEATHER

PRESSURE TROUSERS, a base item legs in Ada's Trail, shown on the map of THE MOON where it drops — PRESSURE TROUSERS — where it drops, in THE MOON.

Where it comes from

THE MOON carries it in its drop pool.
MARS carries it in its drop pool.
THE RIFT carries it in its drop pool.
BOOT HILL carries it in its drop pool.
THE GARAGE carries it in its drop pool.

Every one of those pools carries EVA TROUSERS and HARD-SUIT TROUSERS 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 61 deep.