How to balance quest rewards for unbalanced characters?

Question

I plan to run a Roll20 one-shot Naheulbeuk game with players who may have very unbalanced characters, some of them way more powerful than others. Of course, it may leads to some problems, but my main concern here is with their reward at the end of the quest if they succeed it, since they will be using these characters in other GMs' games afterwards.

It will probably be a mix of gold coins (reward from the NPC who ask for their help) and loot objects got on the adventure. In any case, how can I make sure to not give overpowered items or treasure to the weakest character but still give substantial reward to the strongest? They will likely split any amount of gold in even parts between them, and try to share fairly between them items they will find by looting corpses and places they will encounter.

They will all use their characters with others game masters after my game, so I have be careful about not overpowering them.

Answer 1

In any case, how can I make sure to not give overpowered items or treasure to the weakest character but still give substantial reward to the strongest?

Here is your question. A problem would be to give the wrong item to the wrong person. How to give the right item to the right person?

Use flavorful item

For example, if your high level player is a Paladin of Dlul and the low level player is an elf and they found a powerful pillow and quiver of quickness. They should be able to sort it out.

Use an NPC

During the second season of The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk, the Elven Queen gave a lot of useful loot. She could have chosen what to give to each of them. "I offer this ring to the dwarf and this sword to the Barbarian." Galadriel from Lord of the Ring did exactly this.

Use an in game deus ex

Ok. I dont recommend this one. The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is a parody. If you have an overpowered player, it is a problem easy to fix. Remove it. La caisse des donjons could come and say that this item is an error and that it should come back to its rightful owner. You can say that Krom like the sword and during a revelation ask for it. This game is an humerous one. Feel free to invent a funny deus ex.

Answer 2

My suggestion would be to try to find side quests or separate the group if possible.

One way to do this would be through a faction system, getting the low level PCs enrolled into these factions and being given resources for it. (For example, in my campaign of 3rd level players I had one player falling behind in levels join a faction of thieves, and be given a +2 dagger in return for working for their cause and bringing them a spell component only found in the next dungeon.)

However this solution may not work if the character is used with multiple different GMs, so I would ask them about the idea first.