Rewards for fighting mercenaries are sometimes not quite satisfying - maybe try...

I feel like there are some cases when you click on merc and can't find anything worth your time in his belongings. You don't want to hire the wimp, you don't want to banish his type, you don't want anything from him, not even the pouch contents and finally you don't want to just leave without satisfaction, but there it is.

How about another option similar to the pouch but less deterministic and potentialy exciting? A little option that gives that one last hope for something nice - one that let's us "gamble" in order to get some generic drops after defeating the merc, just like a regular monster would drop. If not the generic reward pool, then maybe some random item(s) from a pool generated along merc like "random breach reward" or "random fossils" similiar to legion or blight rewards.

That's my thought for spicing mercs up. Just don't spice their OHKOs up, we are still on rehab after last time.

Just take the Renown hit. You'll get it back the next Merc you fight. ='[.]'=