Cooler Quest Rewards

[S_Grey]

I'm going to be running my latest story arc soon in a long ongoing game my group has been playing. All of the characters will be around level 16-18 by the end of it and I want to give them a more suitable reward than just "stuff." There will be stuff, of course, but I think rewarding them with something more unique would be cooler.

Unfortunately, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I could give them. It's a very high fantasy setting and all of the characters are mid-op or higher.

We intend to continue playing after this arc, so things like deification are right out.

Any helpful thoughts for what I could give my players?

[BRC]

The key to giving cool rewards is to personalize them for the characters. Tell us about your PCs.

[Ravens_cry]

What kind of connections do your characters have with NPCs and organizations? Your cleric could be promoted to bishop of their faith, and your fighter type could be granted land and title, for example. Oh, and this could open up a whole new adventure as now they have to tame the wild, bandit ridden wilderness in which the diocese and fiefdom reside, all while building a manor and encouraging settlers and trade.

[Chronos]

One recent adventure, one of our quest rewards was that we got to name the cavern where the final fight took place.

We settled on calling it "Malon's View", after our cleric, Malon, who spent most of the fight either prone or dangling from a magic rope, directly beneath an erinyes.

[Diarmuid]

Do you want these rewards to have mechanical impact, or more role-play/fluff aspects to them?

Role-play/Fluff rewards could be things like being raised to the nobility and given lands, fancy titles denoting them heroes of the land, etc.

Mechanical benefits could be free feats, SLA's, a bonus class ability from a different class, etc. Largely depending on where they're coming from (as to what would be appropriate) and what the PC's did to earn them. If those things meshed together to make them feel more "real" then it might "mean" more to the PC's rather than everyone getting a boon that's super specific to their character and that would not really be in the power of the bestower to impart.

[Red Fel]

In my first real campaign, years ago, we were tasked with traveling to and protecting a small frontier town. Our success would be rewarded with governmental authority over the locale, which was scenic and possessed valuable resources.

On reaching the town safely, we received an additional reward. You see, the town had a Mythal, and we had been preemptively attuned to it. This meant ridiculous power within the borders of the town.

We subsequently prepared for assault, trained the townspeople, and got to fight it out with our Linear Guild-style opposites. (Mine in particular got a nasty surprise when he tried to telekinetically raise me into the air and drop me. Within the Mythal, I could fly. I waved down at him for a moment, before diving, both swords extended, at his skull. One-hit-KO.) We then got to loot the corpses and were officially recognized by the capital.

Also we got a castle.

These are cool quest rewards. That said, not every achievement needs a castle, or a Mythal, or the looted corpses of your evil counterparts. As others have said, make it personal. Your cleric? Give her some valuable relic of her deity, or recognition from the Archbishop. Your loremaster? Give him a tome of inestimable value, which contains the location of a lost ancient treasure. Your lone warrior who saw his village perish? Give him a piece of torn leather with a message written on it, revealing that others survived the attack - he has a people to return to.

Rewards can have mechanical functions, such as items or spells, or they can have storyline functions. In the Mythal example above, our attunement to the magical field allowed one character to have a vision of her family coat of arms, believed lost in their haste to escape persecution. This led to a story hook. (Admittedly, we felt cheated because this hook focused only on a single character. But the premise is there.)

Good rewards make them feel like they did something awesome, and in return you did something just for them. Great rewards do all that, and give them the opportunity to do something even more awesome.

[S_Grey]

The key to giving cool rewards is to personalize them for the characters. Tell us about your PCs.

I didn't originally do this because it's a game that's gone on for quite some time, and the amount of characters we have is somewhat staggering as a result of the setting.

The "world" we play in consists of every world, from Greyhawk and Faerun, to Rokugan, Dragonlance, and every homebrew plane we've concocted.

My best attempt is listing what I think will be the most relevant PCs:

First is an artificially created Silverbrow human. He is a bit crazy as a result of being a test subject of the last BBEG. His hobbies include doing what he's told and generally being crazy. Also magic.

There's an assassin who so far seems to just be along for the ride, since the ride promised a plane's worth of wealth. She doesn't seem to have much motivation or direction currently, but she does have a soft spot for her traveling companion.

Next is the assassin's traveling companion - the generic sorcerer. She doesn't seem to have much of a motivation yet either (All three of these were made as new characters for this arc, the more developed characters are coming next).

The goliath fighter turned cleric and hunter of the dead after his numerous encounters with negative energy filled baddies. He's currently on Eberron trying to stop an army led by a dread necomancer and an undead frenzied berseker. He's got his own land and keep, and will most likely be an opposing force to the first three (we have a tendency to have our characters enter into conflict).

The undead frenzied berseker who is currently solely occupied with trying to take over Eberron - and then the rest of the multiverse!

The dread necromancer who is using his connections with the F.B. and his army as a way to both find what he needs to become a lich and hopefully reanimate his long-dead wife as one.

[S_Grey]

All of these responses so far have been helpful in some way, and I'd love to give a more detailed account of what's going to happen, but my players frequent here and I don't want to give anything away.

Edit: They've even started to message me about this post.

[Kane0]

Give them something small they can run and develop. Things like their own inn, a small trading caravan or a squad of loyal followers. Something to be responsible for and something that can give a return on the investment of developing it.

Alternatively, weird new toys. When they RP something that doesnt use a tried and true method give them a new corresponding power, ability, spell, etc. Make it deliberately worse than other options and see if they put the effort into practicing it, eventually turning it into a powerful new tool unique to them. The same can be done with items if you like too.

Introduce something odd and rare, not quite awesome but definitely interesting. Any list of useless/fun magic items can give you hints. See what they do with it, and use that as a springboard to turn it into something cool.

[Tevesh]

Magical Locations treasure or a Companion Spirit.

They're unslotted, anyone can benefit from them and they're nifty.

Think up how much you're willing each PC to get as a boon, then craft an Unslotted Magic Item (that's worth x2) and that's what the Magical Location gives them.

[Boci]

If the player is mature enough to handle it, they could be offered a marriage to the daughter/son of a duke.

[aeauseth]

Craft the reward to each player. A simple solution would be to have the KING of the land offer them a wish (or a request of something special). Obviously don't let it be a real wish (unless the KING is an epic caster or something). Have the KING work within his limits to provide the players what they are asking for. A KING can easily grant land/buildings, a bride, the crafting of a magic item, the order for a local wizard college to research a new feat, etc.

[GilesTheCleric]

As others have noted, non-material rewards tailored per PC are good. An easy way to actually use this might be to re-introduce elements from the character's backstory or motivation. However, you might also consider one-use items suitable rewards. Perhaps the hunter of the dead has really done well for his newfound god, and thus the god gives him one use of miracle, redeemable within one year.

Personally, my favourite rewards are those that build on things I already have. In my recently-finished lvl 18 campaign, my cleric founded churches to his god (one there were no churches for already) in waterdeep, thay, and various smaller cities. Getting things like more parishoners or having a church designated as a hajj location, or perhaps the 'head' church of similar churches in the nearby area are things that give my character real satisfaction. My favourite reward was actually just the corpse of a pit fiend lord we killed, which I hung in my waterdeep church as a symbol of the might of my god.

Also, you could probably post more specific things about your game even if your players read these boards. Just put spoiler tags on it, and mention that they shouldn't read it.

[ddude987]

Immediately when you said high fantasy I though, well why not give them something magical that nobody else has or could make. Something they can develop as a group and is unique to them. One example is a floating island with a stronghold on it. They can develop that further, figure out why the island floats and if and how they could steer it places. Maybe they would turn it into a traveling tavern with some good ale.