Having trouble with magic item distrobution. Would appreciate advise!

[Rfkannen]

Howdy! if you know anyone named Rainer stop reading this!

So I am currently dming a level 5 (almost level 6) party of 3, and am planning an adventure but am having trouble with what loot to give in the next adventure.

The party has a particular magic item, it a giant key that when you say a magic word turns into a yacht with a ghost crew. They have managed to figure out that the yacht used to belong to a cloud giant prince, and acts as the key to his long abandoned castle.
They have all decided that they are going to go the castle and try to figure out more. They are all pretty sure that they will figure out how to make the ship fly, considering it used to be the ship of a cloud giant. That sounds pretty cool!

Here's problem though. The character with the key has a storyline about wanting to kill a great dragon, and giving her a dragonslayer here would really work with a lot of her story arc. (they know the prince was in a war against the giants, the character is a goliath and this would be related to ancestory, ect.) And although she considers the key more of a party item than one specifically for her character, in game it was a gift to her and it is her item. So it would feel kind of weird to give her an upgrade to one magic item, another magic item, and not give the rest of the party anything. But also i am afraid that if I give more than that magic items will stop being cool because I am giving to many!

What would you do? Give only the flying or the sword, give bolth, or give more? Any other advise?

ps. In case anyone is curious, the party:
* goliath zealot barbarian with the key
* goblin bard with a cloak of the manta ray (that makes you look undead when you pull the hood up_
* aasimar ranger with gloves of missile snatching (that also gives you an unarmed attack)

[Unoriginal]

You could say that the Dragonslayer isn't in the castle, but the castle contains (along with other rewards) indications on where to find said Dragonslayer. And there could be other, less powerful magic items in that place.


Or: there IS a Dragonslayer there... a Cloud Giant-sized one. And then they have to find the blacksmith who can re-size magic weapons.

[bc56]

So, in any of my games, this would be about the level where PCs would get their first rare permanents, and their first very rare consumables. The boat is essentially a Folding Boat, and as long as the boat doesn't fit in your typical encounter area, flying shouldn't make it too much stronger. I don't know the rarity of a Dragon Slayer off the top of my head, but if it's rare, just give each other character a rare as well.

[Armored Walrus]

I'd trickle out other rewards over the next few sessions. Making sure there's a specific item for each character feels very forced to me. "Oh, the giant just happened to have a perfect item for each of you." It feels a little too comic-booky for me.

However, I would have an item drop that's a good fit for each, over the next few sessions.

Of course, you can just go with the random tables, but you've already chosen to go with choosing the magic items to fit the group, so I'd stick with that approach for this campaign.

[Demonslayer666]

You can go about this several ways and maintain balance.

Go with character specific items.

Go with random items and allow selling/buying of magic items.

Do a little of both. I highly recommend allowing buying/selling of magic items with random generation, otherwise someone will end up shorted.

[ThatDrowPlayer]

I agree that making the boat flying wouldn't be making it overpowered. It is still a form of transportation even when forced to sail the seven seas, so they would likely just use it to fly. You could also use it for aerial combat, say, against a dragon that needs slaying?

It sounds like the party views the ship as communal, so even though it was gifted to her, any benefit to it is a benefit to them all. Going forward, if you want to dispense magic loot to everyone fairly, either let them roll for it or give them a choice of one item from a chest of items.

Rolling leaves it up to the die - make a list of possible items they might find as loot, and if they roll the corresponding number for a magic item, then they find one within. Then let them either take it or roll to determine what the item actually is.

On the other hand, give them a choice. Hand them a list of items that are potentially found as loot, and let each person choose one item from it. The item they choose is what is found in the chest, or on the boss. You can recycle the passed over items in a future loot list. This pretty much takes you out of the situation and let's them choose what they take.