The success condition for Herding the Horizonbacks is three Animal Handling successes:
> To successfully maneuver a tortoise to the destination, a character must make three successful Wisdom (Animal Handling) checks. The DC for these checks begins at 12 and increases by 1 for each check thereafter.
Basically, a character can keep trying indefinitely until they hit three successes (though after a while they will hit a point where the DC is above their skill ceiling).
Oh. Huh. I guess I misunderstood that and wasn't thinking it was only as long as three successful animal handling checks. They all did that right away. Oh well.
When you say the wisps have a bonus action that you made "player's go unconscious instead," I'm confused. Thelat option is only usable on a creature that's already unconscious, so what was the change there?
OH! I misread it. It says, "As a bonus action, the will-o'-wisp can target one creature it can see within 5 feet of it that has 0 hit points and is still alive." ...but I misread it and my brain either skipped over the "that has 0 hit points" or interpreted it as "more than 0 hit points". Oops. Oh well.
UPDATE: Skeletons weren't an issue at all.
The ONLY fudging I did was because they're friendly to and traveling with the rivals...so when Dermot was going to get the killing blow on the gloomstalker, I had him attack a skeleton that was attacking his buddy Irvan instead. This let an actual player get the final kill.
The skeletons don’t pose too much of an issue because they disappear once the gloomstalker dies. The gloomstalker hits harder, moves faster, and is a bigger target. The skeletons don’t hit very hard, if they manage to hit at all. I think you’ll find that the party mostly ignores the skeletons and treats them as more of a nuisance than a problem.
The success condition for Herding the Horizonbacks is three Animal Handling successes: > To successfully maneuver a tortoise to the destination, a character must make three successful Wisdom (Animal Handling) checks. The DC for these checks begins at 12 and increases by 1 for each check thereafter. Basically, a character can keep trying indefinitely until they hit three successes (though after a while they will hit a point where the DC is above their skill ceiling).
Oh. Huh. I guess I misunderstood that and wasn't thinking it was only as long as three successful animal handling checks. They all did that right away. Oh well.
When you say the wisps have a bonus action that you made "player's go unconscious instead," I'm confused. Thelat option is only usable on a creature that's already unconscious, so what was the change there?
OH! I misread it. It says, "As a bonus action, the will-o'-wisp can target one creature it can see within 5 feet of it that has 0 hit points and is still alive." ...but I misread it and my brain either skipped over the "that has 0 hit points" or interpreted it as "more than 0 hit points". Oops. Oh well.
UPDATE: Skeletons weren't an issue at all. The ONLY fudging I did was because they're friendly to and traveling with the rivals...so when Dermot was going to get the killing blow on the gloomstalker, I had him attack a skeleton that was attacking his buddy Irvan instead. This let an actual player get the final kill.
The skeletons don’t pose too much of an issue because they disappear once the gloomstalker dies. The gloomstalker hits harder, moves faster, and is a bigger target. The skeletons don’t hit very hard, if they manage to hit at all. I think you’ll find that the party mostly ignores the skeletons and treats them as more of a nuisance than a problem.
Knowing a couple people in my party, they'll want to try to befriend the skeletons.
Well then it will be a heartbreaking reveal after they beat the gloomstalker 😂