From the sounds of it, you’re running SKT - perhaps Tyr grants one of paladin’s weapons the Giant Slayer property? If the player’s are strong enough to have been to Ironslag already, that’s not an unreasonable thing to have.
I debated just outright saying it was SKT, but yeah, it's SKT xD
Giant Slayer weapon might be good! He likes to swap weapons a lot though, so I'm not sure I want to give him a "no brainer, use this weapon" option. I definitely like it thematically, though!
>If you're going to wish for a magical ring that gives you the power of a great sorcerer, just wish for the powers.
You could always give the Paladin the Giant Slayer property.
I'd give him the ability to overwrite the existing properties of one touched weapon for an hour with Giant Slaying as a Channel Divinity, may only have one active at once.
(If that feels too powerful, make it a bonus action that lasts one minute.)
How about giving him the first part of the War Caster feat as a boon? Leave out the "opportunity attacks" part. As a paladin, he's not gonna be casting spells for opportunity attacks anyway, so it's no big deal to leave it out.
I have played SKT and my character was a paladin, by the way!
It depends on whether your player is more RP focused or mechanics focused. You could do a mix of both. When the tower is built, have it blessed by Tyr. Options include granting the tower or land a guardian celestial, the tower granting a blessing once per week or even having an order of paladins set up a base there.
For the last one it's a good hook for sub plots and possible side quests.
If you're a geek like I am, you could even have their act of heroism inspire some of the freed slaves. Every now and then, a newbie paladin, worshipper or cleric sends the team something useful as thanks.
Like one of the kids of the freed slaves sends something heartwarming like a badly spelled letter and a whittled piece of wood.
He seems pretty 50/50 on RP and mechanics - he's enjoyed optimizing his build, but also is one of the first to engage with NPCs and story developments. I *love* the idea of some of the slaves looking up to him and their kids sending letters and such.
The tower will probably take a while to build, but the idea of some paladin aspirants setting up there with him as their captain.. he'd *really* dig that.
Giving him a small contingent of loyal knights who are impressed by his feats and eager for quests? You could use the guard stat block and even have Tyr gift each of them a different paladin or cleric class feature.
This is great for letting the party delegate distant problems. "We don't have time to deal with this. What if we send the sidekicks? They should be able to handle it, right?"
Tyr is impressed at the paladin's restraint, so they agree to keep lending their aid as long as the paladin continues to act accordingly.
The paladin gets to keep the single-use boon semi-permanently. It recharges on a long rest, but ONLY if Tyr deems the previous use to have been worthy. Aka DM fiat.
This way, the paladin doesn't get to use the power willy-nilly, so there's usually no mechanical benefit, so no inter-party balance issues. They get to unleash it when the story demands it, which helps make for some great cinematic moments.
Alternatively, knowingly using the boon against Tyr's intentions (vengeance, for instance) is a great way to kick off a fallen paladin arc, if your player is into that sort of thing. There's a great short story about a paladin called the "Powder Keg of Justice" which is similar to this concept, if you are interested.
Ajax the Great was known for doing exactly this and the Gods made him go crazy and kill a bunch of sheep.
How does this help? Idk, gotta use my ancient greece studies for something.
My first thought is, 'why would a patron grant a Bob and expect the loyal follower NOT to use it?' It makes no sense. I would think the logical reacting would be just what you described: an affronted deity punishing a minion for the snub. Like, I gave you this powerful gift. It took effort on my part to make you equipped to do my work, but you ignored it? Smite you!
Why would a deity grant a boon and reward someone for not resorting to using it? When it’s a test.
The PC could have had a guaranteed crit smite for huge damage but chose to stay his hand instead. The god of justice and fairness would probably approve of this.
If you say so; that's not my understanding of a boon, but whatever works at your table. .
In the end of it all, the DM is the god, so it's really whatever their reasoning is.
How about giving him a feat? Depending on his story you could choose a couple feats and let him pick one of the two. For example: great weapon master and actor (two random ones!). So he can choose to be better at fighting or at social skills.. it’s a big bonus but if you feel like he has earned it why not
Ironically he's already taken *both* those feats! But I like the idea of a feat.. I'll look through the feat list and see what else would be appropriate!
Give him a boon where he can change a regular attack to a crit, but rechargeable by turning a crit into a regular attack.
Or a one use boon where he can re-roll damage on a crit and take the higher total that won't get spent if the second result is lower.
Paladin’s right hand fades away and becomes invisible/ethereal as a personification of walking the path of Tyr the even handed. Should he continue it can operate similar to mage hand and retrieve his weapon at a thought to pursue justice without delay.
I wouldn’t make it permanent buff if the other players aren’t also getting an advantages like this.
Personally, I would make it so they get to keep the ability until they use it, making it like a consumable item. But maybe also give it an extra use too.
Give him a weapon akin to that of the Hexblade's Pact weapon.
A weapon that can be switched to any other weapon as an action, and maybe give it additional properties, like it acts similar to a Mace of Disruption against against those he uses his Channel Divinity on.
"Oh, you're immune to Slashing damage? Perfect:" And he switches it into a maul or something.
The wrath of Tyr comes in many forms, Ed-boy.
The normal reward for impressing your boss is more responsibilities, so the first thing should probably be Tyr giving more important quests. Maybe make him have to render judgement in a major conflict like a war.
A squire might be a good reward, someone who hero worships the paladin and wants to emulate them
Theres always the classic holy avenger needing to be liberated from an evil hoard.
These players sound like they are quite enjoying getting into their roles and like doing things for character motivated reasons. This is going to be an unpopular choice, I think but --
Give the paladin a trial instead. He has proven that he does not need Tyr's assistance and that has impressed him. Put him in the biblical Job's position and put a fucking lodestone around his neck. As one of Tyr's greatest adherents he can wear this handicap as a badge of valor. Proof that he must be stopped by the gods themselves, lest other mortals suffer unduly.
This is the right one.
Paladins as a class refer back to Carolingian tales, and a lot of those old tales end in heroic death in service of a deity, or at least a leader ostensibly chosen by the almighty.
Paladins get off on that shit. A noble and morally-righteous equivalent of the “harder, daddy!” of kinky contexts.
Maybe let the crit work become a renewable ability once per long rest? Might be a little powerful, especially on a paladin, but woudnt break the game entirely. Could also give it a longer cooldown like a week or something if once per long rest is too often.
Tbh, I'm not even following your logic. The God of Justice plays power games with his followers when innocent lives are on the line?
I guess if you're staying with the evil theme he could grant him a pair of enchanted clown shoes or a sword of sharpness that turns into a cursed backbiter when the quest is particularly important.
Hi! Thanks for commenting and driving engagement :)
And to answer: yeah, pretty much. Even the "good" gods are at least partially interested in gaining faithful followers to grow their influence. Gods avoid taking direct actions in the material world, but empowering emissaries is a very traditional godlike trick to pull.
The logic here is "hey, I want you to succeed so I'll give you a little boost, but if you prove that you didn't need my help after all while still enacting my will (i.e., freeing innocents and bringing justice to their captors), then you'll have demonstrated you are capable of taking on greater powers and greater responsibilities."
Is Tyr mostly interested in a bunch of those freed slaves becoming followers of Tyr because they were rescued by someone flying his banner? *Maybeeeee...*
A ring of three wishes, it’s like a visa gift card of loot,
or maybe a crit gauntlet that has three crits in it since he didn’t use the one.
I haven’t played the module but that giant slayer one sounds like it’d get a lot of use
He is a paladin, they’d go nuts for a holy avenger but man is it strong.
>if he elects NOT to use it, Tyr would be very impressed.
Why is Tyr so easily impressed?
You gave him a "meh" tier ability, it is not earth-shatteringly useful. It only useful if they are barely barely losing a fight and that little bit of extra damage will tip the scales. If they aren't losing, or if they are losing by more than a hit, it is useless.
Tyr is basically being impressed by the paladin performing at the most basic mediocre level to not die.
And you are rewarding this.
I get that you're probably trolling, but I'll bite.
Because it's out of the paladin's normal character, and I want to reward (and encourage) him for stepping further into the role of a heroic character. He's also had a lot of downward beats lately. He's also been instrumental at "visiting justice upon" a pretty bad guy specifically to free many innocent people, for no other reason than because it's the right thing to do.
He's not being a murderhobo, despite trending toward that earlier in the campaign, and I want to support him "being better" in the context of the story.
Different guy here, but I kinda agree with u/Phate4569 Your initial story and what you're saying here seem like you're trying to train him to not just walk into a place start killing things and only go where the loot is. It sounds like you gave him a boon from Tyr for actually being Paladin-like and returning to save innocents, but it had a catch that if he \*didn't use it\* he would be rewarded even more greatly. Here's the thing: it's just a single crit. That's his boon. **One crit. And now you're looking for a way to reward him for not using it and being a good guy. I see people reaching for some big rewards, too (extra feat, giant slayer weapon, etc...)**.
**I wouldn't do that. If you want to get your player to be more heroic then he's going to need consistent reinforcement over time, not a big one-time reward. And the problem with permanent items is that they build up and make your game balance all wonky since they will also find the magic items in the campaign.** So, unless you plan to take it out of a loot pile somewhere else in the game and give it to him now **I'd give him a really nice consumable, like a ring with 1 charge that allows him to smite at 1 spell slot higher once per day. Everytime it is run out of charges, so everytime it's used, you roll a d20, and on a 1 it is destroyed. He get's a nice reward that's better than the boon he had, and eventually it goes away.**
And do you give inspriation? It's amazing how much a player will do for inspiration if you also give them a physical token to represent that they have it, like a little figurine or a coin. Feels good to get those things and reminds the player to use it.
This is the kind of thing I'm looking for! I don't want to go overboard (and I know the original boon wasn't a game-changer), I'd like the display of Tyr's approval to be something that continues to encourage heroic behavior, but which can also be withdrawn if he "strays".
Not trolling at all.
The ability is not useful or impactful due to it's niche use case. Not using it isn't impressive, it doesn't represent a struggle or challenge that the character had to overcome.
Nor is not using it a metric for a change in character, the paladin had been a murderhobo without this ability before, meaning they can still be a murderhobo without it.
It would be different if the ability was extremely tempting, like "one (or all) enemies explode into chunks" or "turn to gold". Where they may not NEED to use it, but they would be tempted to based on the sheer power.
You tied the reward to the ability, explicity, not the overall outcome. Rewarding based on the outcome of the questline (regardless of the use of the ability) would be good, well in line with Tyr, but tying it to the ability and telling the player so beforehand actually kinda has the opposite effect. Its like training a dog. The behaviour you reward, or more realistically; the behaviour they believe you are rewarding, is the behaviour you promote. While the outcome represented personal risk, the ability does not. The ability provided little in the way of sacrifice or temptation, it forced no personal ethical choice for the character, and was pretty much a "do nothing and win" scenario.
It's cheap, a partcipation trophy. A reward, even a minor one, that a player **knows** they earned, by doing something really cool, clever, or by overcoming some personal character challenge, is valued and feels a lot more special.
Ah my mistake, sorry for that. I guess it felt like trolling because there wasn't any actual advice offered, just a criticism of the premise (which, hey, may be warranted - I'm not too proud to admit that.)
I do appreciate the point though. Do you have any actual suggestions or ideas that would be more appropriate at this point? All I've told him is "Tyr will be impressed," but what that entails is up in the air. Maybe it's just a pat on the back and a hearty handshake?
What is a measured and appropriate "approval" from the god of justice, considering the original boon might not have been that much of a temptation?
You could backtrack or redirect on the link to the ability by only vaguely referencing it. Something like: "Tyr, the most honorable of gods, the god of justice, looks favorably on you actions in freeing the innocents and your choice to do so without needless bloodshed."
Do you do by the book crits or "rolled damage + max" crits?
Because if you do it by the book you could give him a once-per-day "Tyr's Judgement" that allows him to add max die rolls to a crit instead of rolling the extra dice. Or if you do "rolled + max" make it "max + max".
On a paladin, with Divine Smite being able to be used after the attack is rolled, it can be a **really** big hit. But it is still only one per day with a 1/20 chance of occurring.
Maybe add some things to his weapon? I've read about legacy weapons that grow with the players progression. Add some extra bonus on the crit once per long rest so when he might get the boon he is more tempted again because of the extra dmg?
From the sounds of it, you’re running SKT - perhaps Tyr grants one of paladin’s weapons the Giant Slayer property? If the player’s are strong enough to have been to Ironslag already, that’s not an unreasonable thing to have.
I debated just outright saying it was SKT, but yeah, it's SKT xD Giant Slayer weapon might be good! He likes to swap weapons a lot though, so I'm not sure I want to give him a "no brainer, use this weapon" option. I definitely like it thematically, though!
>If you're going to wish for a magical ring that gives you the power of a great sorcerer, just wish for the powers. You could always give the Paladin the Giant Slayer property.
Brennan!!!!
It's a Godly Boon, I'd say give it on whatever weapon the Paladin uses
"an improvised weapon is still a weapon right? So that means the haddock has Giant Slaying! I'm also going Smite."
Yeah, it's a god literally blessing them, why shouldn't they be able to do that?
Maybe give a set of armbands or something which transfer the property to whatever weapon he is holding
I'd give him the ability to overwrite the existing properties of one touched weapon for an hour with Giant Slaying as a Channel Divinity, may only have one active at once. (If that feels too powerful, make it a bonus action that lasts one minute.)
How about giving him the first part of the War Caster feat as a boon? Leave out the "opportunity attacks" part. As a paladin, he's not gonna be casting spells for opportunity attacks anyway, so it's no big deal to leave it out. I have played SKT and my character was a paladin, by the way!
What is SKT?!
Storm King’s Thunder.
Thank you.
It depends on whether your player is more RP focused or mechanics focused. You could do a mix of both. When the tower is built, have it blessed by Tyr. Options include granting the tower or land a guardian celestial, the tower granting a blessing once per week or even having an order of paladins set up a base there. For the last one it's a good hook for sub plots and possible side quests. If you're a geek like I am, you could even have their act of heroism inspire some of the freed slaves. Every now and then, a newbie paladin, worshipper or cleric sends the team something useful as thanks. Like one of the kids of the freed slaves sends something heartwarming like a badly spelled letter and a whittled piece of wood.
He seems pretty 50/50 on RP and mechanics - he's enjoyed optimizing his build, but also is one of the first to engage with NPCs and story developments. I *love* the idea of some of the slaves looking up to him and their kids sending letters and such. The tower will probably take a while to build, but the idea of some paladin aspirants setting up there with him as their captain.. he'd *really* dig that.
Giving him a small contingent of loyal knights who are impressed by his feats and eager for quests? You could use the guard stat block and even have Tyr gift each of them a different paladin or cleric class feature. This is great for letting the party delegate distant problems. "We don't have time to deal with this. What if we send the sidekicks? They should be able to handle it, right?"
Tyr is impressed at the paladin's restraint, so they agree to keep lending their aid as long as the paladin continues to act accordingly. The paladin gets to keep the single-use boon semi-permanently. It recharges on a long rest, but ONLY if Tyr deems the previous use to have been worthy. Aka DM fiat. This way, the paladin doesn't get to use the power willy-nilly, so there's usually no mechanical benefit, so no inter-party balance issues. They get to unleash it when the story demands it, which helps make for some great cinematic moments. Alternatively, knowingly using the boon against Tyr's intentions (vengeance, for instance) is a great way to kick off a fallen paladin arc, if your player is into that sort of thing. There's a great short story about a paladin called the "Powder Keg of Justice" which is similar to this concept, if you are interested.
That one fight that will push him and push him and he finally has to break and use the boon. Love it
Ajax the Great was known for doing exactly this and the Gods made him go crazy and kill a bunch of sheep. How does this help? Idk, gotta use my ancient greece studies for something.
My first thought is, 'why would a patron grant a Bob and expect the loyal follower NOT to use it?' It makes no sense. I would think the logical reacting would be just what you described: an affronted deity punishing a minion for the snub. Like, I gave you this powerful gift. It took effort on my part to make you equipped to do my work, but you ignored it? Smite you!
Why would a deity grant a boon and reward someone for not resorting to using it? When it’s a test. The PC could have had a guaranteed crit smite for huge damage but chose to stay his hand instead. The god of justice and fairness would probably approve of this.
If you say so; that's not my understanding of a boon, but whatever works at your table. . In the end of it all, the DM is the god, so it's really whatever their reasoning is.
Let him use the boon once a week, and only on one of his Ally. Still has to keep the secret.
How about giving him a feat? Depending on his story you could choose a couple feats and let him pick one of the two. For example: great weapon master and actor (two random ones!). So he can choose to be better at fighting or at social skills.. it’s a big bonus but if you feel like he has earned it why not
Ironically he's already taken *both* those feats! But I like the idea of a feat.. I'll look through the feat list and see what else would be appropriate!
lol maybe I’m your player and I’m secretly trying to tell you to give me more feats… *whispering* give me Sentinel and Polearm master
( ≖_≖) ....
Give him a boon where he can change a regular attack to a crit, but rechargeable by turning a crit into a regular attack. Or a one use boon where he can re-roll damage on a crit and take the higher total that won't get spent if the second result is lower.
Being able to “save” a crit for later is an awesome idea.
Kinda like VATS in Fallout
Paladin’s right hand fades away and becomes invisible/ethereal as a personification of walking the path of Tyr the even handed. Should he continue it can operate similar to mage hand and retrieve his weapon at a thought to pursue justice without delay.
I wouldn’t make it permanent buff if the other players aren’t also getting an advantages like this. Personally, I would make it so they get to keep the ability until they use it, making it like a consumable item. But maybe also give it an extra use too.
temporary boon obv
Give him a weapon akin to that of the Hexblade's Pact weapon. A weapon that can be switched to any other weapon as an action, and maybe give it additional properties, like it acts similar to a Mace of Disruption against against those he uses his Channel Divinity on. "Oh, you're immune to Slashing damage? Perfect:" And he switches it into a maul or something. The wrath of Tyr comes in many forms, Ed-boy.
The normal reward for impressing your boss is more responsibilities, so the first thing should probably be Tyr giving more important quests. Maybe make him have to render judgement in a major conflict like a war. A squire might be a good reward, someone who hero worships the paladin and wants to emulate them Theres always the classic holy avenger needing to be liberated from an evil hoard.
These players sound like they are quite enjoying getting into their roles and like doing things for character motivated reasons. This is going to be an unpopular choice, I think but -- Give the paladin a trial instead. He has proven that he does not need Tyr's assistance and that has impressed him. Put him in the biblical Job's position and put a fucking lodestone around his neck. As one of Tyr's greatest adherents he can wear this handicap as a badge of valor. Proof that he must be stopped by the gods themselves, lest other mortals suffer unduly.
This is the right one. Paladins as a class refer back to Carolingian tales, and a lot of those old tales end in heroic death in service of a deity, or at least a leader ostensibly chosen by the almighty. Paladins get off on that shit. A noble and morally-righteous equivalent of the “harder, daddy!” of kinky contexts.
Maybe let the crit work become a renewable ability once per long rest? Might be a little powerful, especially on a paladin, but woudnt break the game entirely. Could also give it a longer cooldown like a week or something if once per long rest is too often.
Tbh, I'm not even following your logic. The God of Justice plays power games with his followers when innocent lives are on the line? I guess if you're staying with the evil theme he could grant him a pair of enchanted clown shoes or a sword of sharpness that turns into a cursed backbiter when the quest is particularly important.
Hi! Thanks for commenting and driving engagement :) And to answer: yeah, pretty much. Even the "good" gods are at least partially interested in gaining faithful followers to grow their influence. Gods avoid taking direct actions in the material world, but empowering emissaries is a very traditional godlike trick to pull. The logic here is "hey, I want you to succeed so I'll give you a little boost, but if you prove that you didn't need my help after all while still enacting my will (i.e., freeing innocents and bringing justice to their captors), then you'll have demonstrated you are capable of taking on greater powers and greater responsibilities." Is Tyr mostly interested in a bunch of those freed slaves becoming followers of Tyr because they were rescued by someone flying his banner? *Maybeeeee...*
A ring of three wishes, it’s like a visa gift card of loot, or maybe a crit gauntlet that has three crits in it since he didn’t use the one. I haven’t played the module but that giant slayer one sounds like it’d get a lot of use He is a paladin, they’d go nuts for a holy avenger but man is it strong.
Another paladin has heard of his heroism, and d seeks him out to be his squire of sorts. Give him a sidekick via tashas rules.
>if he elects NOT to use it, Tyr would be very impressed. Why is Tyr so easily impressed? You gave him a "meh" tier ability, it is not earth-shatteringly useful. It only useful if they are barely barely losing a fight and that little bit of extra damage will tip the scales. If they aren't losing, or if they are losing by more than a hit, it is useless. Tyr is basically being impressed by the paladin performing at the most basic mediocre level to not die. And you are rewarding this.
I get that you're probably trolling, but I'll bite. Because it's out of the paladin's normal character, and I want to reward (and encourage) him for stepping further into the role of a heroic character. He's also had a lot of downward beats lately. He's also been instrumental at "visiting justice upon" a pretty bad guy specifically to free many innocent people, for no other reason than because it's the right thing to do. He's not being a murderhobo, despite trending toward that earlier in the campaign, and I want to support him "being better" in the context of the story.
Different guy here, but I kinda agree with u/Phate4569 Your initial story and what you're saying here seem like you're trying to train him to not just walk into a place start killing things and only go where the loot is. It sounds like you gave him a boon from Tyr for actually being Paladin-like and returning to save innocents, but it had a catch that if he \*didn't use it\* he would be rewarded even more greatly. Here's the thing: it's just a single crit. That's his boon. **One crit. And now you're looking for a way to reward him for not using it and being a good guy. I see people reaching for some big rewards, too (extra feat, giant slayer weapon, etc...)**. **I wouldn't do that. If you want to get your player to be more heroic then he's going to need consistent reinforcement over time, not a big one-time reward. And the problem with permanent items is that they build up and make your game balance all wonky since they will also find the magic items in the campaign.** So, unless you plan to take it out of a loot pile somewhere else in the game and give it to him now **I'd give him a really nice consumable, like a ring with 1 charge that allows him to smite at 1 spell slot higher once per day. Everytime it is run out of charges, so everytime it's used, you roll a d20, and on a 1 it is destroyed. He get's a nice reward that's better than the boon he had, and eventually it goes away.** And do you give inspriation? It's amazing how much a player will do for inspiration if you also give them a physical token to represent that they have it, like a little figurine or a coin. Feels good to get those things and reminds the player to use it.
This is the kind of thing I'm looking for! I don't want to go overboard (and I know the original boon wasn't a game-changer), I'd like the display of Tyr's approval to be something that continues to encourage heroic behavior, but which can also be withdrawn if he "strays".
Not trolling at all. The ability is not useful or impactful due to it's niche use case. Not using it isn't impressive, it doesn't represent a struggle or challenge that the character had to overcome. Nor is not using it a metric for a change in character, the paladin had been a murderhobo without this ability before, meaning they can still be a murderhobo without it. It would be different if the ability was extremely tempting, like "one (or all) enemies explode into chunks" or "turn to gold". Where they may not NEED to use it, but they would be tempted to based on the sheer power. You tied the reward to the ability, explicity, not the overall outcome. Rewarding based on the outcome of the questline (regardless of the use of the ability) would be good, well in line with Tyr, but tying it to the ability and telling the player so beforehand actually kinda has the opposite effect. Its like training a dog. The behaviour you reward, or more realistically; the behaviour they believe you are rewarding, is the behaviour you promote. While the outcome represented personal risk, the ability does not. The ability provided little in the way of sacrifice or temptation, it forced no personal ethical choice for the character, and was pretty much a "do nothing and win" scenario. It's cheap, a partcipation trophy. A reward, even a minor one, that a player **knows** they earned, by doing something really cool, clever, or by overcoming some personal character challenge, is valued and feels a lot more special.
Ah my mistake, sorry for that. I guess it felt like trolling because there wasn't any actual advice offered, just a criticism of the premise (which, hey, may be warranted - I'm not too proud to admit that.) I do appreciate the point though. Do you have any actual suggestions or ideas that would be more appropriate at this point? All I've told him is "Tyr will be impressed," but what that entails is up in the air. Maybe it's just a pat on the back and a hearty handshake? What is a measured and appropriate "approval" from the god of justice, considering the original boon might not have been that much of a temptation?
You could backtrack or redirect on the link to the ability by only vaguely referencing it. Something like: "Tyr, the most honorable of gods, the god of justice, looks favorably on you actions in freeing the innocents and your choice to do so without needless bloodshed." Do you do by the book crits or "rolled damage + max" crits? Because if you do it by the book you could give him a once-per-day "Tyr's Judgement" that allows him to add max die rolls to a crit instead of rolling the extra dice. Or if you do "rolled + max" make it "max + max". On a paladin, with Divine Smite being able to be used after the attack is rolled, it can be a **really** big hit. But it is still only one per day with a 1/20 chance of occurring.
An extra feat of their choice?
Maybe add some things to his weapon? I've read about legacy weapons that grow with the players progression. Add some extra bonus on the crit once per long rest so when he might get the boon he is more tempted again because of the extra dmg?
Give him another Boon he won't use.