diff --git a/src/infrastructure/query/policy/PhabricatorPolicyAwareQuery.php b/src/infrastructure/query/policy/PhabricatorPolicyAwareQuery.php
--- a/src/infrastructure/query/policy/PhabricatorPolicyAwareQuery.php
+++ b/src/infrastructure/query/policy/PhabricatorPolicyAwareQuery.php
@@ -233,7 +233,10 @@
     // number of records when the viewer can see few or none of them. See
     // T11773 for some discussion.
     $this->isOverheated = false;
-    $overheat_limit = $limit * 10;
+
+    // See T13386. If we on an old offset-based paging workflow, we need
+    // to base the overheating limit on both the offset and limit.
+    $overheat_limit = $need * 10;
     $total_seen = 0;
 
     do {