Quest Rewards
Introduction
This introduce a GM to how rewards is handled in a quest.
XP Rewards from Quest
XP rewards is based on the following definitions:
- Encounter: A singular combat, fight, tense social situations, negotiation in which the players can fail.
- Quest: A series of linked encounters toward a short-term objective - like rescuing hostages, defeating a group of bandits. Usually consist of 1 - 3 encounters.
- Campaign: A series of linked quests, usually toward a longer storyline objective.
And for each completed quest, the player gains the following XP number based on the difficulty of the quest and its importance. Completion does not equal a victory, but rather simply completing a quest narratively - whether it is by failure or success, advancing the story:
- Easy Quest - 30 XP: An easy quest one could finish in 3 - 4 rounds of combat, with practically guaranteed victory
- Medium Quest - 40 XP: A medium quest one could finish with an even odds of victory assuming normal play.
- Difficult Quest - 50 XP: A quest where the quest is difficult, there’s a low chance of victory, party resources are depleted and or they have to use their brain a lot.
- Campaign Milestone Bonus - 20 - 100 XP: A bonus to the ending quest for a campaign, a reward for players who have stuck through - should be proportional to the length of the campaign and how actively the player has participated.
The quest system assumes a reasonable level of difficulty or challenge. For Combat-Focused Quest, there’s several tiers in which players can be grouped to fight together without a significant power gap issue. Short of desperation, Combat Focused Quest should not be assigned to players way above their tier. However, Narrative Focused Quest is a different story - If groups with widely differing power levels are in the same Campaign, consider splitting up their combat encounters so players of similar power level are fighting together.
- Level 1 - 2 - Early Level, similar power
- Level 2 - 3 - Do this if you must, but Level 3 is one of the most significant power spike in Drase
- Level 3 - 4
- Level 5 - 6
- Level 7 - 10 - While lower level gaps are preferred, at the higher end the difference is not massive enough to make most feel utterly useless.
Financial Rewards
The rewards for a quest should be proportional to its difficulty. On a per quest basis, these are the average value of financial rewards we intend for a player to receive. This amount includes payment by the NPC and loot found on the battlefield. If it exceeds the maximum value must be approved by an Admin or an Owner, with good roleplay justifications. This keep it fair as it prevents GM favoring players and ruining progression:
- Level 1 - 2: Avg: 1000 SP. Max: 5000 SP.
- Level 3 - 6: Avg: 2000 SP. Max: 10000 SP.
- Level 7 - 10: Avg: 4000 SP. Max: 25,000 SP.
Campaign Rewards
Finishing a campaign may give more rewards than what a normal quest will do. The amount should be no more than 4 times that of the per quest value of that difficulty level.
Asset Rewards
Unless otherwise stated, a character is rewarded Assets equal to the Silver Rewards. A GM can choose to increase the ratio of asset reward, but should never decrease it, if they deem it appropriate - for example, the players have captured multiple prisoners but giving most of the reward in normal silver will unbalance the experience - then GM can choose to reward the ransom in assets instead so the PC can purchase a nice house for their efforts (Or a bunch of farmland).
Rewarding more than 4x the silver value in Asset must be well justified and approved by an Admin or an Owner.
Loot
Loot are often sold at much lower value than market price - especially non-consumable like armor and weapons from dead people, from various effects such as being looted off dead bodies, market flooding, lack of demand etc. A party should be rewarded for taking the measures needed to carry more loot - with more loot being granted if they can carry more, and loot being given up if, say, the party’s pack horses are killed. A GM is not expected to count all the loot found on the battlefield nor describe them piece by piece, but to just give a fair summary of what they can find, what they can decide to keep, and the total value of sold items.
Raid Quest
A Raid Quest can be a standalone quest, or be the culmination of an adventure or campaign - multiple quests stringed together. They differentiate from a normal quest by being longer - expecting all members to be active and present for a longer amount of time. They may also include several fights instead of one or two fights, longer in between fight sequences, and may be more difficult in general. A epic / raid quest is carried out specifically with the IC / OOC knowledge it will lead to greater rewards.
For example, the quest to take down the leader of an enemy army at the culmination of a campaign, or to hunt down a red wyrm for their hide - fighting numerous less consequential creatures on the way. They give the same XP reward as a normal quest, and are less frequent (Not every quest should be an epic / raid quest).
They differ from a normal quest by giving guaranteed raid rewards for everyone who participated to the end in a proper manner (I.e. active and contributed to solving the quest), and they may also give out up to triple the financial rewards appropriate for their tier.
Raid Quest vs Ordinary Quest
Raid Quest - is usually a quest at the end of a multi-quest adventure / campaign, such a quest can almost always be designed as a raid quest with guaranteed raid rewards. In addition, it can also be hosted as a singular quest or maybe with a single linked preparation quest, as part of a special event on the server.
Outside of the above two situations, we do not recommend hosting a raid quest on its own - doing so requires permission from admin.
Raid Reward
A raid reward is a reward for completing an Epic / Raid Quest, but may also be used for ordinary quest rewards. A raid reward is labeled as (Raid) on the character’s inventory, and may includes different items including but not limited to:
- Armor Addons - Taken from dead monster, granted by nobles / guildmaster
- High Tier Enchanted Armor - Enchanted Armor should be of the highest of their class, offered to the character, and customized for their use. (I.e. a GM should not hand over light armor to a heavy armor user). Their origin story could be getting a famous smith to make it for them - crafted out of monster material, etc. etc. This also includes an offer to increase the enchantment tier on an armor. This will impart the raid quality on the armor if enchanted.
- High Tier Enchanted Weapon - That is appropriate to the target.
- Weapon Rune (s) - That is appropriate for the target.
- Pets - Strong combat pets, eggs / youngling of said pets, or ordinary or powerful mounts. Probably will have restrictions, somehow.
A raid items have certain property that distinguishes it from other items:
- They cannot be sold at all - once an item is made into a raid item, it cannot be sold for any fraction of its value. This might be non-sense, but is key to the bargain.
- They are non-transferable between PCs.
- They can greatly exceed the allowed financial rewards of a quest and do not count toward the limits.
It allows players to rack up a unique list of enchantments, weapons and other things from quests based on their achievement.
Although raid rewards can exceed the allowed monetary value of a quest, what kind of raid rewards can be given for a quest still depends on its tier. In case of multiple players with vastly differing tier in a quest - the stronger players get the better raid loot - GM will find a reason to justify it - like stronger players get the lion’s share of loot / rewards etc. etc.
Raid Rewards Table
The Level of Quest refers to the level of the players participating - and naturally assume the difficulty of the quest is proportional. For Level 1 - 2, raid quests might be beyond their ability but might be appropriate as a starter quest transitioning into Level 3 or starting Level 3.
Tier 3 - 4 and 5 - 6 may cross over, but GM should keep in mind the desired progression of the players and the difficulties of the quest before. Previous tier’s loot are of course allowed, but GM should take into account not to hand out too much loot.
Some additional rules:
- Weapon & Armor cannot be “Upgraded”. They receive a new set with enchantment.
- If GM wishes to offer rewards not in the allowed loot list, maximum value is the maximum monetary value of the raid rewards that is permitted. Of course, these rewards would be labeled Raid too and may not be actual money.
| Level | Allowed Loot | Maximum Value |
| 1 - 2 |
| 5000 |
| 3 - 4 |
| 15000 |
| 5 - 6 |
| 30000 |
| 7 - 10 |
| 60000 |
Combat / Exotic Pet Granting Rules
- Anything above TL5 needs admin approval, even if it is a youngling / useless in combat variation. This has lore implications (We’ll solve this later on with better bestiary traits.)
- Anything sapient, talking, with two legs or the equivalence cannot be granted as a pet or adopted. No, no goblin babies or mushroom man adoption. They have to be sufficiently, convincingly “dumb”.
- They need to be reasonably tameable / domesticated. No undead pet or construct pet, you know.
Granting Rewards to Players
Preferably, GM should just have their patrons ask the players what they desire (If they have one, and isn’t say, hunting down a dragon for material). In cases where for example, two players want fire resistance and hunt down a beast with material to make one, and the other two players don’t want the same thing, then they should say, gain a reward they bartered for by trading the beast’s raw materials, or grateful local nobles that offers them enchantment to their gears etc. - Just think of a way to compensate everyone in the quest fairly.
The monetary value of raid reward need not be equal between party members, but it should not show favoritism and grants something everyone would appreciate / be able to use.
IOU
In case the player or GM wants to (In most case, player) want to pursue a specific asset worth more than the limit of a single raid request, they can declare the intention to acquire the asset (For example, Bob want to acquire a mansion worth 80k Silver, which exceed the value that can be given out in any single quest), then the GM can accumulate the debt (Provided that the PC is working for the same patron, of course) and grant them the asset at once upon completing multiple raid quests or raid quest + normal quests as seen as appropriate. Of course, such an asset is granted through favor and therefore isn’t transactable, put a (Raid) tag on it.
Raid Rewards in Non-Raid Quest
In some cases, like at the end of a campaign, a GM can choose to hand out raid rewards to reward the players for participating in an ordinary quest - for example, pets / younglings / mounts or low tier enchanted weapons. They should be labeled as a raid reward and it should correspond to effort - possibly being downtiered from a normal, actual raid quest.
Misc. Quest Rules
- Combat Pet: Occasionally, a GM may choose to grant a combat pet as a raid reward. However, combat pets can greatly alter the balance of a combat, and a GM has discretion to reject players from bringing combat pets (Not ordinary mount, if appropriate) into a quest for any reasons or no reasons at all, if they deem it necessary to keep the quest fun.
- If say, it is a war or war scene, then combat pets might be appropriate
- If it is an ordinary dungeon raid, combat pets may be barred
- GM may also bar combat pet(s) from being brought on the sole reason of exceeding the bookkeeping capacity, using the summoning individual entity rules as a guideline.
- Remember, GM can say no because it isn’t fun. And it is final.
- Younglings / Eggs / Hatchlings: If you are granted a youngling, egg or such of an exotic pet / combat pet, you cannot use them in combat and they will not grow from juvenile state within the timeline of the quest (This might be changed later). Just head pat them or something.