What do you think a player should be rewarded with at the end of a unique, challenging and large dungeon?

I'm currently planning to do a dungeon mod, but I'm a bit stuck as to what to reward the player with. I was thinking of giving the player a house and something else, but what do you think?

Thanks for any help.

You could offer all of them to the player and let them choose one. Shanthe did something like that at the end of "The Puzzle Canol".

That would alleviate my problem, and it would give the mod quite a bit of replayability.

A house? At the deepest part of a dangerous dungeon? Or do you mean a key or something for a house elsewhere?

Armor is alright but there's the problem of light/heavy armor and which one the player actually uses...

A key to a house elsewhere.

I could let the player choose what type of armour they want, which would solve the light/medium/heavy problem, but that would mean a lot of extra work to try and get the three variations balanced.

If we don't like the armor you've already created, we can always choose a different option. I might even take armor I wouldn't use for display anyway.

Personally, I feel having very obvious rewards at the end of things can be kind of 'gamey'... as in - go in, kill all the nasties, kill the big Boss Nasty, then find your reward which just happens to be waiting for you at the end of it all... :huh:

Having a convincing reason to explore or kill lots of nasties, as opposed to simply getting some sort of 'reward', might be more interesting and feel less predictable maybe?

That reason could be something like: retrieving an artifact which helps advances a quest/ plot .... finding someone who may be hiding, i.e. a quest character or someone with information ... finding clues which help solve a mystery ... locating the missing parts of something .... locating a place which may have been buried/ disappeared ... finding an alternative way into somewhere (Mournhold sewers kind of thing) ..... etc.

Finding valuable or rare artifacts can be fun too, but can also feel a bit predictable & gamey sometimes I feel (not to mention potentially spoiling if it's not done carefully - that is if the item makes you ultra rich or powerful for the rest of the game).

I was thinking about doing it in a similar vein as the Mentor's Ring, where the dungeon is well hidden, it has no links to any quests, but it has got some backstory which you can learn about throughout the dungeon.

I think it really depends on the dungeon. In some kind of tomb, a magical item could be well fitting.

An old abandoned Fort may contain the key to a house.

I mean, anywhere can have anything, but try to make it fit the area as best you can.

Voted a mix I think a complete unique suit of armor and a unique weapon to match the set.

Generally the problem with giving the player equipment as a reward (be it some armor/a weapon/enchanted jewelery) is that it has to compete with both vanilla and mod added items. After all, you can only use one cuirass or weapon at a time.

A house can work - provided that it has some connection with the dungeon.

However you may call me weird, but I think a good reward can be a trophy to place at your house - if the final boss is a monster, then it may be its head on a plaque, otherwise the bosses' broken weapon or something like that...

I voted "other" because I'm a realist.
There shouldn't be some wacky TA-DA!!!!!!!!!! moment when you reach the final dead-end of a dungeon.
Isn't that a linear concept?

What's a "dungeon"? It's just some abandoned place that some undesirables take refuge in. You invade their home, and kill them. Technically, you're the bad guy here.
There shouldn't have to be anything worth bragging about in any dungeon, especially the difficult ones. it keeps you humble. You can find a Daedric Helmet in some guy's footlocker, and a Steel Longsword in a dragon's dung pile. Good loot doesn't have to be a reward. The reward is that you survived...

there were several dungeons in which you find something that when you bring it back to another npc. it tells them of what happened to someone. like the ashlanders lost son one. there are not many of those. and they were kinda neat in that what you did made a difference to some other character.

Maybe do a set of armour, and give it out in parts.
Like near the end you get a sword, but the other pieces are scattered throughout the dungeon, maybe hidden along with other unique misc stuff.
That way, after playing through the whole dungeon, someone will have as many things as they found, and one standalone one they get at the end.
Sort of like the Amileorn tomb in Oblivion.

I'd say create your own set of armor, and then give one piece per dungeon. Of course this has the requirement of you making more than one mod, but why stop at one? It would make people look forward to your next mod, so they can maybe finally complete the set. The following mods don't even need to be dungeons either, they can be anything. Escort this rich and powerful merchant, his presence is known to some undesirables but he can't delay his departure because he needs to make it back to his boat before the storm hits. Free my son, but be discreet about it, he got caught by daedra worshipers who are using him as a hostage to secure their safety. Help my best soldier clear out this stronghold, I need a bigger home and this one would be great, but it's full of witches. Now that you've gotten me this place, please help defend it against enemy legions, they're trying to steal it from me while I move in. So on.

As dungeon-crawling rewards, pretty much all these things have been done to death. I would say, however, that the key to any house above the level of a Seyda Neen shack should require some sort of quest to get. I hate house mods which hand them out just for showing up.

To me, the ideal reward at the end of a long, hard dungeon dive is some sort of magic (a stone you touch, a pool you drink from. . . whatever) which grants you a new power. Powers are nice to have, but don't clutter up your inventory and (because they can only be used once a day) don't unbalance the game even if they're quite strong. A permanent skill or attribute increase is another possibility.

This is an addition to GraveFalcon's idea.
You could craft them all into one questline. Say have a .esp that adds a guild to the game, release it along with the first mod, release the next ones in order, and have all the rewards tied into a final quest.
Somewhat akin to Oblivion's KotN questline.

I voted "a mix of the above" because there are different sets of dungeons too.
The loot at the end must be something according to the place. I mean, in a dwemer dungeon you expect to find jewels, old dwemer clutter and dwemer weapons/armor.
In a daedric you expect to capture very powerful souls for your enchantments and get that awesome daedric katanas or daedric weapons.
In the sheogorath region you expect to find aureals and ebony equipment and their powerful souls if you kill them.
A modded dungeon must reward what it fits more for that dungeon. If it's a tomb, the player can expect to find some unique armor, weapon or jewel. But, alas, there are many types of tombs too.
If that one has been raided by bandits, you'll find bandit loot and according treasure... and the chief of bandits himself should wear some piece of unique armor if he is a warrior, and some powerful scrolls and a unique robe if he is a mage.
What I'm trying to say, it's the loot has to be according to the place and its actual inhabitants. A modded dungeon needs lore and a story, then the loot it's easy to decide

Make it a ring, and give the ring the enchantment of Windwalker/Windform. So you can cast it 3 times before it needs to be recharged. I've been meaning to do a quest for it for a long time - I'd love it for someone else to include it.

Thank you everyone for your replies!

I've read through what you have all said and checked the results of the poll, and I've come up with this:

At first the player will be doing some unrelated quests like what Gravefalcon said, with some nice rewards at the end e.g. a sword. As the player is doing these quests, they catch the attention of a new guild. This guild then asks the player to help them out with a few of their own problems. If the player agrees he/she will end up going through a few unique dungeons, getting the unique items, and delivering them back to the guild.
Once the player has done this the guild gives the player a chance to join, if he/she accepts they get to pick one of the unique items they have just collected for the guild.

So what do you all think?

Interesting concept. I like it.

I've always liked the idea of the reward being based on certian conditions, if the dungion is "big" enough.
Such as a hemit if the player did X, a shield if they did Y, and so on.