WELDING MASK
- BASE ITEM
- HEAD
- LEVEL 4
WELDING MASKWELDING MASK is headgear, wielded from level 4.
The requirement cuts both ways: nothing below level 4 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 ARC WELDING MASK and FUSION MASK, at requirements the endgame can actually meet.
A spare face from the fab shop where the hero once welded engines. Sparks bounce; so do teeth. It still fits, after everything.
What it does
- MATERIALMAIL, which turns 1.6× what the same piece would in cloth.
- ALSO DEMANDS2 STRENGTH to wear — heavier materials want a bruiser inside them.
- WEARS OUT80 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.
- SALVAGEIt melts down: the merchant pays double 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 WELDING MASK and a PERFECT WELDING MASK 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 | 8–11 | 0.58–0.82× | 20% | 0% |
| CRUDE | 9–13 | 0.73–0.97× | 25% | 6% |
| NORMAL | 12–14 | 0.90–1.10× | 52% | 54% |
| SUPERIOR | 13–17 | 1.03–1.27× | 3% | 28% |
| PERFECT | 15–19 | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WELDING MASK (normal) | 4 | 13 | 80 | |
| ARC WELDING MASK | 28 | 34 | 100 | |
| FUSION MASK | 51 | 59 | 120 |
Where it comes from
- GOODCO HQ carries it in its drop pool.
- 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 ARC WELDING MASK and FUSION MASK 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 51 deep.