Players love their character getting more powerful! It’s a strong reward for play and to engage players at the table, making them keep coming back for more!

But powering up through levels can start to take multiple sessions, while speeding up leveling takes some of the enjoyment out of anticipating a new level and appreciation of the previous level gained. And once you’ve given a +1 weapon, that’s it. The only thing to go onto is +2. And soon enough the party will all be equipped with +2 and we will be strapped for what to give as a reward next, while having made the party significantly more powerful at the same time. We want to give powering up rewards multiple times in play, but there is little granulation and so the rewards give too much too soon?

Here is your answer! The following is a way of granting more power to each player regularly through play, granted in manageable increments!

Here is the first example – Defensive Boons!

[[ I’m currently developing a PDF with a number of different Boon types, offensive as well. Providing many more hours of rewards in play ]]

Defence Boons

These upgrades are found as small, magic precious stones. The magic allows them to be pressed into armour and they will magically set themselves into the item. When finding these stones, it can be fun to say to a player ‘You’ve found a precious stone – what type is it and what does it look like?’, as the magic stone will become a part of their armour latter on, once used. So they will decide the new look of their equipment!

Each magic stone represents an upgrade stage. Armour can have multiple stones, each increasing the level of boon granted upon the armour and thereby the character that wears it!

Defence Boon Levels

1 This level grants the wearer to activate the boon as a free action on their turn, and for one round (until the start of their next turn) they receive +1 AC on top of their regular armour class. This can be done once per long rest. 2 The Boon grants a bonus for two rounds 3 The Boon grants a bonus for three rounds 4 In addition to the previous effect that can be activated, the Boon now has a reactive component! When the PC would be struck by an attack, as a free action the player can choose to activate the Boon to gain +1 AC. They decide this after finding out the attack roll result! However, this bonus only applies to this one attack and then the reactive charge is spent. See the recharge rules below.

Recharge cost : 20g 5 Reactive recharge cost reduced : 10g 6 Reactive recharge cost reduced : 5g 7 Reactive recharge cost reduced : 2g 8 Reactive recharge cost reduced : 1g 9 Reactive component will self recharge for free, once per week! You can still pay for a recharge, which doesn’t reset the recharge time.

Recharging Reactions

This can generally be done in town where spell services are performed. All the strange glass jars on the walls, mystic books and stuffed crocodiles owned by the NPC magic user are part of their effects for gathering energy over time. Collected inside all these knick knacks in their magic shop, which they can use for effects like recharging the reactive Boon in the adventurers equipment! The magic user, for their expertise, time and prior investment in miscellaneous strange potion bottles and crumbling scrolls, requires a fee in gold, as described in the table. Only one reactive charge can be held at a time by an item.

Sometimes a town is grateful for the adventurers deeds or the adventurers have proven to be good souls in how they act in town. And so the magic user providing the spell casting service will offer a certain amount of gold removed from the cost of recharge, to reward the PCs or attempt to gain some favor with the PC’s.

Other times the PC might find a recharging ritual circle in a dungeon, set up by humanoid monsters (the energies were to be used for evil designs, no doubt!). They can use the energy of these ritual circles (once! Then the circle is spent!) to recharge their Boon. A circle is the equivalent of recharging a certain number of golds worth – the GM determines the amount when they create the circle. This becomes another form of treasure to be found in dungeons! Otherwise the PCs can simply pay for the service in town and receive the benefit of the Boon.

Sometimes the player might be able to buy a one use portable magic device that can be used mid dungeon to recharge their item. It costs twice as much as a regular recharge and only one such portable recharge can be applied per item per long rest. It’s also a nice thing to come across – appreciate the generosity in the GM’s world if you find one!

How to Apportion the Rewards / At what Rate to Give the Boons

If there are four players are at first level and a session is around two hours then it’s a question of whether they get to level 2 occurs in the first session.

If they will level after the first session, a good rate to start with one Boon found by a players PC in the first half hour, then another at around an hour into the session. The last hour of the session will likely be rather busy and may involve other treasure types to act as rewards, as well as the reward of leveling.

After that, one Boon per half hour of play for a group of four! Also on that half hour, roll a D6. On a 6 a second Boon is found! Occasional extra rewards lends more spice to play!

At that rate and in terms of armour, that covers about 15 hours of play at one reward per half hour. The players will probably upgrade their armour at some point, needing to start again with new Boons in the new armour (The old Boons cannot be transferred over, they are a part of the previous armour now!). So this will cover around another 15 hours of play!

[[ The PDF version of this play support will have a table for various group sizes and what rewards to give, more information on level 1 and Boons that go up to level 12 in strength! ]]

But how do I make sure PC’s get a Boon at the right time?

Boons can come to the player, they don’t have to wait in a specific location until found – did they look in a draw that’s empty? It’s not, it has a Boon in it! Did they just open a door or make a turn in a corridor into an area they haven’t seen? Well, there’s a small chest there, with a Boon inside! Freed prisoners, thankful villagers – all can have a stash they give up to the PC’s.

[[ In the PDF there will be a table with over a dozen entries to choose from or roll on when the real life time has come to determine where a Boon could be found ]]

How does the group distribute them?

Really the PC’s might be drawing straws. In real life, the players can roll off (or you could make straws to draw, to add immersion!). Only players who have not yet received a Boon roll off to see who gets the highest roll (equal highest roll off again until there is only one left!) – once everyone has received one Boon, then a new round begins and with the new round everyone rolls to see who receives the next one. And so on, distributing the Boons evenly!