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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeff Wilder" data-source="post: 1779650" data-attributes="member: 5122">"Were believed to."  Ignorant superstition, anyone?Paranoia/Poetic license...Handle Animal skill?Fear effect?  Night hag?  Great Listen check?  Paranoia?  Knwoing they are out to get you?The Heal skill, combined with synergy with Craft (herbalism) given by a generous DM?Healing is a draining skill, especially when tending the very critically sick or wounded.No, the Heal skill again, with a bonus for knowing about a particularly medicinally-useful plant.Look, if Aragorn's touch actually healed wounds, there were enough people around to see it, and yet in none of the passages you quote did any onlookers see such a thing.  The most mystical thing they sensed was the smell of athelas.  I've had a contact high, too.Why in the world did they "labor" far into the night?  Which requires long hours and hard work: the Heal skill used on many people, or laying on of hands?Who, exactly, is speaking with animals here?Praying?  Meditating?  Examining the blade?  Thinking, "Oh, crap, we're in trouble now, I wish Gandalf were here"?Yeah, about as much talent for item creation as the guy who sold me my Lucky Buddha down in Chinatown.  He laid a virtue on it for 'good fortune,' and I still haven't won the lottery.  (Of course, I don't play the lottery ... )Even if the staffs are actually magical, Faramir didn't say he enchanted them.  Seems like he was pretty careful to use the passive voice, in fact.Wait, are you sure they didn't actually turn to stone?  Because up until now you've been putting a lot of stock into the perceptions and "beliefs" of onlookers.I don't specifically remember this scene, truthfully.  Who's involved?Or you could give the ranger Listen and Spot skills, and lots of skill points, and access to the Alertness feat.Or you could give the ranger the Handle Animal skill, and lots of skill points, and have actual trained carrier pigeons and hounds to use the skill on.Or you could give the ranger the Handle Animal skill, and lots of skill points.Or you could give the ranger an ability that allows the befriending of wild beasts, and call it something wacky, like, I dunno, "Wild Empathy.""I can call spirits from the vasty deep!" / "Why so can I, and so can any man / "But will they come when you do call for them?"You're actually claiming Aragorn summoned creatures?Wild Empathy, Handle Animal ... waitasec, again ... are you claiming that Aragorn casts giant growth somewhere?  'Cause all of the above passages are stretches, but that'd be a whopper.Or you could give the ranger the Heal and Craft (herbalism) skills.  (If you're a reasonable DM, you could even allow synergy between the two.)Or you could give the ranger the Spot skill and a night with a moon.  (And if you're a nice DM -- or an author with power of life and death -- you could even lower the DC for the search substantially.)Yeah, the Search skill would do it.Or you could give the ranger the Survival skill and the Endurance feat.Or you could give the ranger the Craft (trapmaking) skill.Or you could give the ranger the Hide and Move Silently skills.Or you could give the ranger Woodland Stride.  (And maybe even an extra 10' of movement (Unearthed Arcana).)Or you could give the ranger the Knowledge (nature), Craft (herbalism), and Heal skills, and an experienced and long-lived ranger might even have cross-class skills in Knowledge (history).Endurance feat.  (You're gettin' seriously repetitive now.)You have got to be kidding me.  Water walk?  Is Strider yer own personal Jesus?Spot, Listen, Alertness...Not "could be."  "Has been."  And, oddly, the sky didn't fall.</blockquote>

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