Isaac Chalk
Explorer
Related to healing, is how resting and healing up works. (Or, here is how 13th Age solves the 15 minute workday.)
Broadly similar to the short rest/extended rest system, with a difference. An extended rest is only available penalty free after a set number of fights or otherwise challenging sequences. (Four by default, more for easy fights, fewer for harder ones.) An extended rest need not be eight hours - depending on how your GM rolls it could barely be a rest.
Taking an extended rest prematurely is possible, but incurs a "campaign loss," as in, your failure to tough it out means that the antagonists get a leg up on you somehow, in a way that merely beating up more monsters won't quite fix. They beat you to the Tomb of the Most Exalted Sword King, for example, or the hostage dies.
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it feels a bit "meta," in a way that other rules in the game don't quite feel. A little too on the nose. It precludes scenarios where the dungeon (or other hostile environment) is there to be explored at the PC's own pace.
But on the other hand, most game I'm in - including Indy's - function on this as an unwritten rule already, where we are only getting into meaningful fights when we are racing the clock somehow. It does do its best to encourage players to push on and take risks, if they're sufficiently invested in the story that setbacks in their role in it would hurt more than potentially losing a character would. It speaks more to the sensibilities of 13th Age - fewer open-world dungeon crawls and more story-based antagonism. (Or, to use a metaphor by way of comparison: less Bethesda RPG and more Bioware RPG.)
I happen to think that the solution to the 15 minute adventurer day will happen when we stop recharging critical PC resources on a daily-rest schedule. In other words, the problem is largely self-created. But solving it might be beyond the scope of 13th Age, and in the meantime, this rule does a well enough job.
Broadly similar to the short rest/extended rest system, with a difference. An extended rest is only available penalty free after a set number of fights or otherwise challenging sequences. (Four by default, more for easy fights, fewer for harder ones.) An extended rest need not be eight hours - depending on how your GM rolls it could barely be a rest.
Taking an extended rest prematurely is possible, but incurs a "campaign loss," as in, your failure to tough it out means that the antagonists get a leg up on you somehow, in a way that merely beating up more monsters won't quite fix. They beat you to the Tomb of the Most Exalted Sword King, for example, or the hostage dies.
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it feels a bit "meta," in a way that other rules in the game don't quite feel. A little too on the nose. It precludes scenarios where the dungeon (or other hostile environment) is there to be explored at the PC's own pace.
But on the other hand, most game I'm in - including Indy's - function on this as an unwritten rule already, where we are only getting into meaningful fights when we are racing the clock somehow. It does do its best to encourage players to push on and take risks, if they're sufficiently invested in the story that setbacks in their role in it would hurt more than potentially losing a character would. It speaks more to the sensibilities of 13th Age - fewer open-world dungeon crawls and more story-based antagonism. (Or, to use a metaphor by way of comparison: less Bethesda RPG and more Bioware RPG.)
I happen to think that the solution to the 15 minute adventurer day will happen when we stop recharging critical PC resources on a daily-rest schedule. In other words, the problem is largely self-created. But solving it might be beyond the scope of 13th Age, and in the meantime, this rule does a well enough job.