Ability Refresh

So a few years ago, I was playing 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons with some friends. In the game, characters get abilities they can use as much as they like, abilities they can only use once per conflict (need ten minutes of uninterrupted rest to regain use of it), and abilities that can only be used once a day (need eight hours of rest).

So my fellow heroes and I were going through a cave squishing some beetles (giant hostile beetles), when our GM rolls a D6, getting a 6, and declares that the beetle's fire breath ability has been regained. Whuh? He shows me the entry in the monster manual, and how a lot of the monsters in the book have abilities that refresh when certain numbers are rolled. That's actually kind of cool... so... why don't the heroes have that?

So I tinkered around with a game that did something very similar with the heroes. The game eventually turned into something else entirely, with the refresh thing thrown out.

The basic idea is that all your combat abilities are expended on use. Maybe the different abilities could be written on cards which you flip over. Every turn you roll a die, and you can refresh one ability that has that number on it. Some abilities might have more than one number on it.

If you're able to use more than one ability per turn, you can quickly end up with very few skills left to use by the end of the game. If you categorize the numbers in certain ways like all primary attacks refresh on 1, secondary attacks have 2s, debuffs have 3s, buffs are 4s, etc. then it encourages players to have and use a wide variety of abilities so their refresh every turn isn't 'wasted'.

Later on I tinkered with a similar idea, but instead all the abilities use one of three resources. These are represented by a stack of poker chips (or something similar), and when you expend them to use a skill, you put the chip into a cup or opaque bag or something. Every turn, you draw a random chip from the bag.

The refresh system has a similar feel to the one in D&D 4e; you start the day/adventure being able to do a lot, and end up needing to rest by the end. Some abilities can be used a whole lot, and other skills can only be used a few times. While my way takes a bit more book keeping, it's a more engaging (in my opinion) and feels less contrived.