For the story that I am writing, I can't think of enough tiers of gear. Near the end is dragon scales, at the start leather armor often found on bandits. I need ideas that go past leather, iron and steel. What would the progression for gear tiers look like?

Any help with such a matter is appreciated.

Depends on the story, I think people usually start with normal tier equipment such as leather, iron, or steel depend on their budget and settings. Once they graduated, mid-tier should be something like armor made from boss monster's material or harder metal such as mithril.  Here, you can loop their gears from boss monster's material to harder metal and back to monster's or from monster to monster. The upper-tier is just like you said, Dragon and other monstrous creatures. Gears with God's blessing also will do.

Somewhere around mid and upper, you can always use unknown materials or loots from dungeon which usually magic gears with special effects.  Oh, and the option of upgrading your gears are always open if you don't want to bother thinking of new design.

To simplify, low-tier is gear with no ability whatsoever. Mid-tier has some sort of ability or two. And upper is the best you can get or cheat-level. Hope I answer you question.

Materials, not what they can do.

'Anime-Sensei' pid='825352' dateline='1497897835' Wrote: Materials, not what they can do.

Ah, sorry about that. But, I think my first two paragraphs somewhat answered it.

Iron, leather, steel -> boss monster in your story/ greater grade metal like mithril -> unknown material -> dragon.

Well, I can be more specific but it might not go well with your world's setting, and you can also make your own monsters or creatures for their materials.

It depends on your setting. What are the materials and processes available in your world.

For me I would consider both processing technique and material grade.
For technique:
- Poor craftsmanship (ex: Unskilled craftsman, village craftsman, field crafting)
- Good craftsmanship (ex: Skilled craftsman, castle craftsman)
- Extreme craftsmanship/Magic crafted (ex: Master craftsman, beginner magic artificer)
- Cheap and easy minor enchantment (ex: Common magic artificer)
- Expensive and difficult major enchantment (ex: Skilled/Renown magic artificer)

For materials:
- Poor materials (Materials available even with underdeveloped industry. Crude iron, bronze, poor grade wood, poorly processed cloth or leather)
- Common materials (Common materials from developed industry. Steel, better grade wood, treated cloth and leather)
- Minor rare/magic materials (Unconventional materials which are difficult to, or unable to be made into stable industry. Mithril, orichalcum, other common magic metals and stones, monster materials, etc.)
- Major rare/magic materials (Unconventional materials which are often too difficult or too expensive to obtain. Adamantium, megabeast materials, etc.)
- Mystical materials (Unconventional materials which have no reliable method to procure. Material from outer plane. Gods and demons. Unique material. World tree/stone, those kind of stuff.)

Generally I think of:

[Common Tier]

- *Poor grade gears* Common material of poor material processing skill (Poorly processed leather, cloth, wood, iron, bronze, etc.) and average or poor craftsmanship. Something only non-professionals or mook of a poor army would use.

- *Common grade gears* Common material with decent material processing (Steel and other alloys. Decently processed leather, cloth. Suitable wood type for the gear, etc.) and decent craftsmanship or better. The gear common professionals would use. Significantly better performance. Could break poorer gears due to better material and craft, but for from invincible.

- *Fine grade gears* Common material processed with magic for extreme quality (or just extremely skilled craftsman) but no enchantment. Only slightly better than common grade gears. Generally made by beginner or unskilled magic artificer. Fine grade gears are often just decorations.

[Enchanted Tier]

- *Minor Enchanted Gears* Or mass-produced/standard enchanted gears. Common material processed with magic with inexpensive minor enchantment. Significantly better than non-enchanted gears but not special. Main product for magic artificers due to material availability. Common gear for elite army. Successful adventurer might use them for less important gears.

- *Major Enchanted Gears* Or custom/tailor-made enchanted gears. Common material processed with magic with more difficult enchantment. Still avoiding usage of rarer material. Slightly better than minor enchanted gears but take more time and skill to produce, making them unsuitable for mass-production. A suitable reward to give when rare material is not available or the merit is not enough to bestow rare material. Something to equipped officers with as they can be made into standard.

[Magical Gear]

- *Minor Magical Gears* Made with rare material and generally processed with magic and fully enchanted (As on one would waste rare material.). Perhaps made from magical beast/monster/magical metals/other depends on your setting. (Example would be spider-demon silk, monster hide and bones, treant wood, mithril, etc.) These materials should need unconventional method to procure like going into high risk area, hunting monsters, or just too hard to extract, but the risk and cost to procure them is still a reasonable. The performance is much higher than enchanted gear. Officers, elite soldiers, and successful adventurers would often have a few on them. Some might have full set of minor magical gears. But they are too expensive to be made into standard gear for most army.

- *Major Magical Gears* Like minor magical gears, except the material is even harder and more expensive to procure making them even rarer but also better. The materials are so difficult to procure that people would be hesitant to invest in procuring them. Weider of such gear are either very successful or very rich, often both.

- *Mystical Gears* The material is so rare that is has no reliable method to procure.