Leggings

Leggings are a type of armor that covers the lower body of the player. There are five types of leggings - Leather Pants, Chain Leggings, Iron Leggings, Diamond Leggings and Gold Leggings. Leggings can be placed in the 3rd armor slot of a player's inventory for activation. Zombies, skeletons and zombie pigmen can spawn wearing leggings in Normal or Hard.

From mobs
If a zombie, zombie pigman or skeleton is wearing armor, there is a chance that the mob will drop leggings upon death.

From villages
Iron leggings can be found in village chests.

From trading
Emeralds can be traded with villagers in exchange for leggings.

Defense points
Defense points are each signified by half of a shirt of mail in the armor bar above the health bar. Each defense point will reduce any damage dealt to the player which is absorbed by armor by 4%, increasing additively with the number of defense points. Different materials and combinations of armor provide different levels of defense.

The following table shows the amount of defense points added by leggings.

Durability
The following table shows the amount of damage each piece of armor can absorb before being destroyed.

Any "hit" from a damage source that can be blocked by armor will remove one point of durability from each piece of armor worn. Damage taken that armor doesn't protect (such as falling or drowning) will not damage the armor, even if it is enchanted to protect against that type of damage. The following chart displays how many hits chest plates can endure.