D&D 5E (2014) Friendly NPCs and death saves

CapnZapp · May 29, 2015

Yes of course

Sword of Spirit · May 29, 2015

I tend to just go with the standard death saves, or dead at 0 depending on the situation, and use the loose guidelines of how important this character is as the main determinant. If the PCs have an NPC with them and that NPC has class levels, is relevant to any sort of story hook laying about, or is interesting (love interest, quirky personality, PC is attached to them, etc), they get full PC-level dying rules. If it would be more fun to give them a chance to live, such as a lone commoner, or the last goblin, same thing.

The funny thing is that I'm completely comfortable being arbitrary about this, even though I tend more towards a world-simulation than a story aura.

I'm not sure that's a good thing that I'm fine arbitrarily deciding who lives and dies at a moment's notice...

The Crimson Binome · May 29, 2015

emdw45 said:
Anyone who gets death saves has about an 18% chance of rolling a natural 20 and regaining a hit point some time before they die or stabilize, so if you roll for everyone, players may need to start double-tapping downed foes.

True, another simplification involved is that there's no critical success on the stabilization. I forgot about that rule, since it's stupid, and it penalizes players for stabilizing fallen allies.

delericho · May 29, 2015

Wik said:
Anyways. Here's my question: is this a good place for a house rule?

Yep, it's a perfectly good place for a house rule.

Should NPC hirelings/henchmen get three dying saves like PCs, or less? Should they die at one failed dying save? Or even dead at zero hit points? Or should they be treated exactly like PCs?

I'm afraid the answer really is "whatever you want".

I do kinda like the idea of using some sort of variant on "movie logic":

- Major NPCs, which mostly just means the BBEG and similar, apply the same rule as PCs - they get 3 strikes and then they're out.

- Lesser NPCs who remain important enough to have a name get either 1 or 2 strikes and then they're out. This reflects the movie convention that if a character has a name, they don't die off camera (the final Harry Potter film being a noted exception).

(Presumably, such characters who only have a first name would only get 1 strike while characters with a second name would get 2. As explained in "Galaxy Quest".)

- Minor NPCs, who don't even qualify for a name, die at 0 hit points.

Edit: Of course, another option is to not use death saves at all and instead give NPCs a flat chance of dying: 90% for no-names, 60% for one-names, 30% for two-names, and 10% for Major NPCs. But if the PCs bother to take an action to stabilise the character, thus investing resources to make that character 'important', then the percentage drops to 0%.