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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steeldragons" data-source="post: 6490910" data-attributes="member: 92511">That's fine. If you want to rule that way. It is not, I will continue to assert, RAW or AI. The issue is, you go on to say...<emphasis mine>[EDIT: heh heh. Italics don't show up as emphasis in quotes cuz everything's italicized. My bad. Now, emphasis mine. /EDIT]When in fact, the spell description does, explicitly, say "or anything that specific"...a skill check. It's not phrased as taking an action, because it is understood that the skill [investigation] is using your action. (see below)Apologies for coming off brusk. You quoted the first half of a sentence and then assert the direct opposite of what the rest of the sentence states. I was confused by how that was possible.No. It doesn't say you need to use the Search action. Correct. It does not.It does say you need to examine, through the Investigation skill.The notation "Ability [skill] check", throughout the book, is saying that you are making an ability check...using a skill. In this case, the skill is Investigation. As opposed to the "Ability check" of, say, an attack roll or a (specifically called out) saving throw ...which this, essentially is: a roll to overcome the spell...if you "examine the phantasm". Whether that constitutes the "use of an [formal] Action" is similarly not in dispute (see below).In the case of Phantasmal Force, it could depend on a case-by-case basis of what the illusion actually is, how the PC is interacting with it, and falls into the "rulings not rules" of the system...if you want it to. Illusion/Phantasm spells in D&D have always had their fuzzy grey areas and complications of what characters believe in the face of what players know.[I am certain I'm not the only person who has been in the game(s) which, the moment an illusionist has been identified -sometimes not even then, but suspected- every encounter, interaction and, indeed, empty hallways, are met with "I disbelieve!!!" before the scene's description is even complete.]Again, if you want to interpret things that way, and say use of any action (to attack, disengage -as I would guess the "stop, drop, & roll" guy would be doing, dodge, etc...) is enough to constitute the investigation/examination, that's fine. It's your table and happy gaming.But the spell, and game as written, does not say that.I will call attention to PHB, p. 174, "Ability Checks", second sentence, in which it states, quite flatly, "The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure."<emphasis mine> In this spell's case, that attempted action is using a skill, Investigation.SO, again, I would not rule/play that way. But nobody's stopping you.</blockquote>

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