D&D 5E "If They Have a Name They Get Death Saves. . ."

[el-remmen]

So in our last session, one of the players asked me, "How come some of our enemies just die when we knock them to 0 hps and others get death saves?"

They had just finished fighting waves of nameless cultists but were now in the middle of fighting the cult lieutenants. One of the lieutenants dropped, but then I rolled a 20 for one of his death saves, and he popped up behind the PCs and tried to get away. They got him down again before he succeeded, though - but it momentarily distracted them from the fight in front of them.

I replied, "Basically, if they are important enough to come with their own names I give them death saves."

 

[Weiley31]

Makes sense.

 

[Yaarel]

So in our last session, one of the players asked me, "How come some of our enemies just die when we knock them to 0 hps and others get death saves?"

They had just finished fighting a waves of nameless cultists but were now in the middle of fighting the cult lieutenants. One of them dropped, but then I rolled a 20 for one of his death saves, and he popped up behind the PCs and tried to get away. They got him down again before he succeeded, though - but it momentarily distracted them from the fight in front of them.

I replied, "Basically, if they are important enough to come with their own names I give them death saves."

Thats a pretty good rule of thumb.

Name gets plot protection.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I give all characters death saves, in theory.

 

[el-remmen]

I give all characters death saves, in theory.

I have done something like this when after a fight PCs who actually care enough to not want people named or not to die(even their enemies) ask who is still alive and needs stabilizing. Then, instead of rolling them all out individually, I just either say 20% stabilize or roll 15% chance for each of them to still be dying when checked - depending on how generous I feel and how much time has passed. I know those numbers don't quite equate with rolling the d20s - but just want a fast solution for those.

 

[iserith]

This wouldn't work for me - everyone from mook to lieutenant to villain to supervillain gets a name in my games. Generally I only give NPCs accompanying the party for some reason death saves.

 

[Umbran]

I give all characters death saves, in theory.

Yeah. Though with the caveat that sometimes, if you don't have a name, you are less a "character" and more an "obstacle/challenge".

 

[el-remmen]

This wouldn't work for me - everyone from mook to lieutenant to villain to supervillain gets a name in my games. Generally I only give NPCs accompanying the party for some reason death saves.

Wow. That's a lot of names! A lot of time folks get names after the fact. Like when the party stabilized a random bandit, and when they woke him up for interrogation, I gave him a name.

 

[darjr]

I’ve done this. One time got a crit on an especially heinous antagonist. The PCs double tapped everything after that.

 

[iserith]

Wow. That's a lot of names! A lot of time folks get names after the fact. Like when the party stabilized a random bandit, and when they woke him up for interrogation, I gave him a name.

I name them all beforehand and names (plus AC and hit point bar) are visible. It helps when players can say the name of the target they are talking to or attacking, for example, since they can be specific and there's no back and forth to clarify. For this scene above in particular, I like to (jokingly) tell the players if they don't pronounce the names of the NPCs correctly, they have disadvantage on Charisma checks to influence them. And always, always I have one annoying NPC with the nickname "RP" (here, Rolfplaer) who bores everyone with his or her backstory.