3.5 rewarding players multiple choice.

[Mordante]

I would like to give my players some kind of reward. However I want to give them a choice. My idea is that would set a certain amount of lock boxes in the room. These boxes can only be opened by the character they are meant for. So each party member can open one box.

For rewards I was thinking about giving them a couple of options.

1) Ability score improvement
2) Class skill improvement
3) Out of class skill becomes a class skill with some ranks
4) Money
5) An item of choice (within limits)
6) A feat
7) Any other options?

I would like to give them some kind of choice. But how do I go about it? I don’t want to make it over complicated. Something like an interactive illusion (think genie) that talks to them explains their options and then poof disappears. How do I balance it, it would be nice if things were sort of balanced but it's not 100% needed IMHO.

Do you have tips or ideas how to do this? The quest why they get rewarded concerns a green dragon and unseelie fey.

[pabelfly]

Sounds like you want to give them one use of the Wish spell each. Maybe the Dragon or Unseelie Fey casts it for them. You can discuss with the players the sort of limits you're setting on the use of Wish out-of-character.

[BWR]

Tell them the genie/dragon/fey/whatever gives them a special boon and ask what they would like. Then give them the options OOC and let the players choose, and just describe what happens afterwards. Don't bother with a video game-like thing like the illusion.

I basically did this a little while ago. A powerful NPC decided to help the PCs with a quest and gave them some useful things. OOC I told the players to choose a major magic item each. THe NPC just happened to have these items on her and gave them away.
One of the players asked if she could have a Ring of Three Wishes. I said OK. There was a beautiful development of expressions on the players' faces as they processed this, going from "Awesome!" to "OH ****. If he's just giving us a ton of wishes, what the hell does he have in store for us?"

[Mordante]

As an additional "reward" the adventurers will be Fey touched, since they will receive a wish/blessing of the Fey. How to incorporate this into game mechanics I'm not really sure yet. But since the Fey gift are seldom 100% what they seem to be I'd like to give the adventurers a little extra.

I'm really new to DMing and my knowledge of the rules is really limited.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I see six results from faustian pacts. Although, I suppose the ability boost, cash prize, and free magic item are all acheivable by wish but since I have no idea what level your PCs are, I can't speak to how appropriate that is.

Honestly; if a mysterious, plainly magical creatures offered me a boon of my choosing, I'd probably either pass on it or, if I was an artificer, start dismantling the magcal mechanism for the XP (big score if it's wish based), presuming the creature wasn't just hovering about to see the decision made.

Are you sure your PCs are sufficiently paranoid for this line of work?

Anyway, except for the cash and magic item, these are all unusual rewards for a quest. The abiilty score increase in particular is powerful magic. Faustian pacts are the -only- way I know of to perform the other 3 by RAW. The guidelines for that (fiendish codex 2) might give you a decent starting point for determining how appropriate they are to the PCs level and what they've accomplished in this quest, though you can, of course, ignore the lore elements of indebting themselves to a fiendish power... or not :smallamused:.

[Mordante]

I see six results from faustian pacts. Although, I suppose the ability boost, cash prize, and free magic item are all acheivable by wish but since I have no idea what level your PCs are, I can't speak to how appropriate that is.

Honestly; if a mysterious, plainly magical creatures offered me a boon of my choosing, I'd probably either pass on it or, if I was an artificer, start dismantling the magcal mechanism for the XP (big score if it's wish based), presuming the creature wasn't just hovering about to see the decision made.

Are you sure your PCs are sufficiently paranoid for this line of work?

Anyway, except for the cash and magic item, these are all unusual rewards for a quest. The abiilty score increase in particular is powerful magic. Faustian pacts are the -only- way I know of to perform the other 3 by RAW. The guidelines for that (fiendish codex 2) might give you a decent starting point for determining how appropriate they are to the PCs level and what they've accomplished in this quest, though you can, of course, ignore the lore elements of indebting themselves to a fiendish power... or not :smallamused:.

The party is level 16

Nambax 3 swordsage/3 mage/10 monk Illumian. He is mainly focused on gaining knowledge and has a secret interest in Necromancy so he can speak with his dead ancestress. Restoring their souls or so.
Mirinae rogue/sorc/shadow dancer Drow part of moondancing cult/followers of Eilstraee, not evil. Mainly focussed on trying to stay away from the evil drow and preventing het cult from being destroyed
Sheelana pure wizard specialization illusion human, pacifist but knows sometimes violence is a necessary evil. Would love to spend her days hugging bunnies. But too curious to not go on adventure
Gerald 7 wizard/8 master alchemist uses potions, powders, etc instead of direct spells. Used to live a long time alone on the woods helping the resistance, hopes to bring peace to the city where he grew up
Elhael Fighter, mostly ranged, noble son will inherent some crown. But now send away to have his adventures see the world and calm down before he takes the crown
(forgot his name) Divine oracle, becoming an avatar of a minor deity, sometimes sees future, past and present (mostly for Roleplay purposes). Help others to find the lost (persons, knowledge, items etc)
Ouroboros Fighter/Archblade, Deamon elf, when young was trying to do good, when he got older found out that good and evil are hardly that black and white. Now sort of looking for a purpose without wanting to get trapped in righteous cause. (My own character. plan to retire him as a knight of the unseelie court).
Then we have some people that seldom show up. A Duskblade who is scared of his own power so he mostly hides and looks what others are doing and a Bard that is pure support and loves to get naked when performing he dance. A Cleric that is a pure healbot that want to respec, we will allow that since recently have the party started playing new characters

As far as I know they never gained an permanent ability boost by means of magic items.

I'll have to look upi the Faustian Pact in the fiendish codex 2. But I don't want to go over the top. Something like, that they cannot harm other Fey unless the Fey Queen allows them to do so. Give them a +2 on charm based (not charisma per se) skill checks. A minus 1 on will checks for certain encounters. Better able to deal with harsh environments. I need to think about that some more.

I started playing DnD about 1 maybe 2 years ago and now I've taken over the campaign for a few months to give to previous DM a break and let him play as well.