Table of Contents
Challenges and Rewards
Every adventure must have challenges for the players to overcome. This way their characters become more powerful by gaining experience, additional equipment and favor.
The most common challenge are enemies standing in the way of the adventuring party's goals. Others include traversing dangerous terrain features or environments with hazardous traps.
Enemy Challenge
The enemy challenge may be overcome by different means. The most obvious is defeating them in combat, but the threat they pose may also be eliminated through persuasion, deceit, intimidation, stealth or more inventive means. Each option is equally valid and each enemy is more susceptible to one or another. If the players assess the situation right and seize the best opportunity, they should gain the full reward even if they took less time to solve the situation.
Each NPC or monster has its own threat level and grants rewards accordingly. However, if the players only talk to the leader of a group to overcome the challenge, they should only get the rewards of that NPC, not the whole group. If the party decides to fight, they reap the reward for each defeated NPC.
Environment Challenge
Environmental features may not actively attack the players, but traversing them can be difficult with high stakes. Climbing, swimming, balancing and other athletic endeavors may end badly when attempted by untrained characters or when the dice betray their wielder. This kind of challenge is best used to drain the party of some of its resources before the real challenge.
There is usually a trailblazer in a group that takes up the challenge first and then tries to secure the path somehow. This creative and cooperative process usually requires some equipment (such as rope) that may be lost on the way. Solving such a challenge deserves a reward, too. Assessing the threat level of environmental features is up to the adventure creator.
Traps are a special kind of environmental feature because they must be either spotted in time or evaded when triggered. The difficulties of the required checks decide the threat level of single traps. Analogous to the enemy challenge, the players only gain the rewards of traps they interacted with (successfully spotted, evaded or disabled).
Combined Challenge
The combination of environmental features, traps and enemies make for the most interesting encounters. Imagine a camp of bandits atop a cliff with a small river at its base. A wet dead tree has fallen across the water and can be used to balance to the other side. There is also a small bridge that leads to stairs carved into the rock. A few watchmen are overlooking the easy access points and a trap of falling rocks is placed over the stairs that may be triggered by one of the guards.
Threat Levels and Rewards
After a challenge has been overcome, calculate the rewards (XP and loot) of its parts according to their respective threat levels. Sometimes it is more plausible to let the party find items or treasure nearby instead of on the bodies of the enemies. If there was no fight to the challenge, the loot can be added to another (later) location. The loot may also be accumulated and placed at the very end of the adventure.
XP can be rewarded either at the end of a challenge if the players are supposed to level their characters during the session. Otherwise, you may also distribute the XP at the end of the session.
The XP gained are distributed evenly across all present PCs. It is up to the players to share the loot.
Although the value is denoted in coins, in most cases the lion's share of the loot will be equipment that could be bought for the specified amount. This includes the still functional equipment that is taken from the enemy.
| # | Threat Level | XP | Loot Value in Coins | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pathetic | 10 | 1d6 (~4) | Fox |
| 2 | Weak | 20 | 4d6 (~17) | Dog |
| 3 | Mediocre | 40 | 1d6 x 10 (~42) | Thug |
| 4 | Moderate | 70 | 2d6 x 10 (~84) | Soldier |
| 5 | Formidable | 110 | 3d6 x 10 (~126) | Veteran Soldier |
| 6 | Menacing | 160 | 4d6 x 10 (~168) | Knight |
| 7 | Dangerous | 220 | 6d6 x 10 (~252) | Troll |
| 8 | Extreme | 290 | 8d6 x 10 (~336) | Griffin |
| 9 | Lethal | 370 | 1d6 x 100 (~420) | Hydra |
| 10 | Legendary | 460 | 2d6 x 100 (~840) | Giant |
| 11 | Mythical | 560 | 3d6 x 100 (~1260) | Dragon |
Exploration
When the party discovers a special place and spends time there interacting with it, you may reward them a small amount between 30 and 50 XP (divided by the player count) depending on the amount of time they spent there and how meaningful their interactions were depending on the nature of the place.
An example of a meaningful interaction is praying or leaving offerings at a mystical hidden pond where spirits dwell. Another example is the exploration of ancient ruins and the deciphering of scriptures that have been carved into the stone a long time ago.
Story Milestones
You might reward the party with a certain amount of XP for reaching certain milestones in the story instead of or in addition to mastered challenges. In this case it is up to the adventure creator to figure out the appropriate amount.
Favor
Rewarding the players with favor is very important. Since this powerful resource does not replenish by itself, the PCs are incentivized to seek out mystical places and creatures. However, a GM may control how much favor the group can accumulate and use this to regulate the party's power level. Keep in mind that some characters may be skilled to interact with favor and need it in order to contribute and remain fun to play.
Favor should be rewarded for travelling to and meaningfully interacting with sacred or mystical places where the veil to the spirit is almost pulled back. Usually such places are used by the locals to practice their religion and can range from an uncommonly large tree to a grand cathedral of marvelous architecture. It can be a simple wooden shrine, an monumental stone circle or a fortified monastery.
Mystical creatures that were created by some divine or supernatural force disperse their favor into their surroundings when they die. If their power was great enough, some of that favor is absorbed by the souls of other living beings in the vicinity. This means that killing such a beast will increase the favor of a PC.
Powerful spirits or divine beings may also impart some favor to the PCs as a reward for fulfilling a request or as a gift for the coming challenges.
Ideally an adventure is designed in a way that there is at least one opportunity to earn one favor. In contrast to XP, favor is not divided by the party's head count. If the PCs defeat a great mystical creature, each member gains one (or more) favor.