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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8475869" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Yes, which unlike the rules for making ability checks, the rules for Frightening Presence specifically state.See above.Skills add proficiency bonuses to checks. Checks are made to resolve actions that are uncertain. An action made to force a PC’s decision is not uncertain, unless the rules for that specific action contradict the general rules of roleplaying and the pattern of play, which the rules for improvising an action do not. It’s really not complicated if you understand checks to be a part of the action resolution procedure rather than specific actions in and of themselves.You’re skipping over a whole lot of gameplay process here to get to “an NPC passes off a disguise.” Depending on how the NPC tries to disguise themselves, success and failure may or may not both be possible and may or may not have meaningful consequences. But, assuming the NPC successfully disguises themselves, it would be on the DM to telegraph this in their description and on the players to declare an attempt to determine if the NPC is disguised, and that attempt likewise may or may not be able to succeed or fail and may or may not have meaningful consequences. Assuming that all of those things are possible, a check would be appropriate to resolve that action - probably Wisdom (Insight) or Wisdom (Perception), maybe Intelligence (Investigation), depending on the specifics of the action declaration. But whatever the case may be, success on that check would reveal to the player that the NPC is wearing a disguise, while failure would not reveal that fact and leave the players to decide what their characters think about the NPC’s identity.The criteria which the DM uses to determine if a check is called for are the fictional positioning as established in their description of the environment and the player’s description of their character’s action, and the rules of the game. One of the rules of the game, as I understand them, is that players decide what their characters do. So, a DM who decides a check is called for when that action overrides that general rule does not have the support of the rules on doing so, unless there are more specific rules governing the resolution of that action (such as the rules for spellcasting) which contradict the general rule. If a character is improvising an action, there are no specific rules governing it, and the DM must either fall back on the general rules (which say the player decides what their character does), or make a call that is not supported by the rules.No, they don’t. Or if they do, I haven’t seen where. So far you have only cited the effects of a successful ability check, and as I’ve explained, ability checks are not actions but a part of the action resolution process; one that is never reached in order for the effects of success to be applied if the action being taken would prevent the player from deciding what their character does and the procedure of play is being followed as it’s laid out in the general rules.There is no special pleading. Actions which would prevent the player from deciding what their character does do not have uncertain outcomes, unless the rules governing the resolution of that specific action make an exception to the general rule that the player decides what their character does. You seem to be generalizing all game mechanics as establishing uncertainty without considering the actual resolution procedures for the specific mechanics being invoked.</blockquote>

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