PULSAR ROD

BASE ITEM
WEAPON
MAGIC
LEVEL 12

REQUIRES LEVEL 12

PULSAR ROD is a magic weapon, wielded from level 12. INTELLECT is the stat that scales it.

The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 12 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 MAGNETAR ROD and QUASAR ROD, at requirements the endgame can actually meet.

A survey rod that ticks out a bright pulse the Apollo crews swore was answering something under the dust. The mission logs say instrument error. The instrument disagrees, on a steady beat.

What it does

PIERCINGThe round punches through 1 more body before it spends itself, so a queued-up line is one shot rather than 2.
PRICED FORAbout 1.5 targets 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 1.6× — a flat trait of the magic class, the same on every weapon in it. Your build earns the crit CHANCE; the class fixes what a crit is worth.

A dropped copy carries 180 swings of wear. At zero it does not shatter — it falls into the bag unusable until a repair kit mends it, and the hero draws the best thing left.

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 PULSAR ROD and a PERFECT PULSAR ROD 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	13–18	0.58–0.82×	20%	0%
CRUDE	16–22	0.73–0.97×	25%	6%
NORMAL	20–25	0.90–1.10×	52%	54%
SUPERIOR	23–29	1.03–1.27×	3%	28%
PERFECT	26–32	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	DAMAGE	DPS	REACHES
PULSAR ROD (normal)	12	17–28	54.2	1.5
MAGNETAR ROD	38	36–60	118.2	1.5
QUASAR ROD	72	62–104	204.5	1.5

The per-hit blow barely moves up the ladder, and that is the point: a longer-reaching weapon in a bigger build sweeps a wider slice of the crowd, so the same damage budget buys more total output at a similar figure per target. Read the REACHES column beside the DPS one.

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.

SUNWREATHMAGNETAR ROD
DEADSTAR
LIGHTBINDERQUASAR ROD

PULSAR ROD, a base item weapon in Ada's Trail, shown on the map of THE MOON where it drops — PULSAR ROD — 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 MAGNETAR ROD and QUASAR ROD 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 72 deep.