13th Age with no Full Heal-Ups

13th Age has a great mechanic wherein players are always guaranteed a full replenish of all spent health and resources after every fourth fight. This is great because it allows players to budget their resources on a known timer, so they don't have to deal with the stress "unknown attrition," and can instead just use their abilities as they see fit without trying to stockpile them for an indefinite amount of time.

This does lead to some pacing issues though. It's hard to always fit the full heal-up into a narrative sweet spot. You can always forgo having a narrative around it and just say "you get the heal-up, even if you're in the middle of a dungeon," but this starts to have a gamist feel.

Here's a hypothetical mod for 13th Age that gets rid of the concept of full heal-ups.

The Changes

There are no full heal-ups. Instead, the following occurs:

1. After each fight, players regain two recoveries. If they had less than zero recoveries to begin with, start from zero and add two instead.
2. After each fight, players may make a recharge roll for any of their recharge powers used during that fight. On a success, they get them back. On a failure, the power goes on-cooldown for two fights.
3. Upon using a Daily power, the power goes on-cooldown for three fights.
4. Double-strength fights award two fights worth of resource recovery. One-and- -a-half-strength fights award a single fights worth of resources, and in addition, the players may choose to gain either a fight's worth of recoveries, or mark an extra fight for all on-cooldown abilities.
5. The players may take a 'minor rest,' to regain a fight's worth of spent resources. However, they will incur a minor complication to do so.
6. The players may take a 'major rest,' to regain all spent resources. However, they will incur a 'major complication' or a 'campaign loss.'
7. At the GM's discretion, a minor or a major rest may be awarded consequence- -free where appropriate.
8. Powers used between fights (e.g.: Wizard Utility Spells) count as if they were used in the next fight.

Note that 'power' may be substituted for anything thing that 'recharges,' like talents.

On-cooldown powers are unavailable for use until the player completes that many fights. For example:

Fight 1: Wizard uses Fireball. Fireball goes on-cooldown for three fights. Fight 2: Fireball is unavailable for this fight and two more fights. Fight 3: Fireball is unavailable for this fight and one more fight. Fight 4: Fireball is unavailable for this fight. Fight 5: Fireball is available!

This is basically the same full heal-up cadence, but on a per-power basis, and without being locked to a global timer.

More than Eight Recoveries?

Typically, a player character has eight recoveries, which means they get two recoveries back per fight.

Various features, talents, and feats grant extra recoveries, as do Belt-type magic items.

If you have more than eight recoveries, gian the following Daily power:

Lump Sum Recover, Daily (after a battle): Take your total recoveries and subtract eight. You may gain back an additional number of recoveries equal to the remainder after a fight. For tracking when this power is on-cooldown, treat it as if you used it in the prior fight.

For example, if you have eleven recoveries due to the Fighter talent and a Champion-tier belt, you can use this power to gain five recoveries (base of two, plus an additional three) after a fight.

Resting

Where narratively appropriate, a rest may be awarded without consequence. For example:

• The party finding an inn for the night and sleeping comfortably may be awarded a minor rest.
• The party completing their main objective and returning to a city to celebrate may be awarded a major rest.

Per Eric on the 13th Age discord, here's an example of a rest-with-consequences:

You are in a Lich's dungeon, and you are in need of a a rest of some sort before the big fight. The player's decide what the level of the rest is, and then the necromancer steps in and says "well, we can maybe recharge ourselves by stealing the power of this necropolis for our own doing". The party agrees, and depending on the level of complication based on rest they took, they are now arriving in the central room empowered by the Lich's own magic, but are going to have to live with the fallout that's going to create.

Minor Complication: For some time after the fight, the players keep hearing remnants of the lich in their memories, and continues to taunt them in their sleep. Major Complication: Undead all over begin seeking out the party, not out of anger, but to publicly defend and swear fealty as their new Undead Lords.

Thank you Eric for the example.

Icon Dice

Not really sure how these should work.

Maybe just keep them as an every-fourth-fight thing, since they don't interact with combat much anyways.

Pros

• Encounter pacing can now be decoupled from narrative pacing. The GM is free to run any number of encounters for a "narrative arc" without having to worry about when that full heal-up will align well with it.
• Players will have a rolling stock of powers available to them, making tactics more dynamic. (Kinda iffy)
• Adds a feeling of inexorability and restlessness to the campaign. If you enjoy this sort of tone, having no rests for a long period of time can add to the sense of scale and heroism.
• Un-solves the combat budget, where players are incentivized to save Dailies for later fights and to spend Recharges as early as possible. (mixed bag)

Cons

• Much more bookkeeping each player has to do.
• The big end-of-day fight doesn't happen anymore. You know the one: Players are running on fumes and have to scrap their way through some big bad evils.
• Resources that don't divide cleanly by-four end up kind of weird.
• Resting allowance may seem subject to GM-arbitrage. One of the main selling points 13th Age has, for me, is that players always get their full heal-up on the fourth fight, no questions. It removes a layer of GM-fiat and replaces it by contract, and this somewhat weakens that contract and puts power back into GM-fiat.

Thank Yous

Thank you to Archwillow, Eric, and OldUmlo for reading and critiquing this document, as well as discussing improvements.