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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8475995" data-attributes="member: 6779196">No, that’s why I kept invoking specific beats general when you tried to hold up Charm Person as a counter-example. Charm Person is a spell, which has a more specific resolution procedure than the general one involving ability checks, so where it contradicts those rules, specific beats general gives it precedence.The rules aren’t very specific on what constitutes stakes, so it’s harder to find support in them for formulating a judgment about stakes. But certainly I don’t think they support a DM in calling for a check that has no stakes.Sure. Though I’m not sure it particularly matters. The resolution procedures for spells and the class and monster features you’ve called out as breaking the roleplaying rule don’t particularly care about the certainty of the action.I think this would more closely resemble my argument if you cut 3 (because it’s irrelevant) and change 4 to “luckily, there are actions that, in exception to the general action resolution mechanic, don’t require a check to be made to be successful, and therefore avoid the test altogether.Your argument here is treating the degree of specificity as the issue, which as I’ve said to you in an earlier post, it is not. The issue is the order of operations. Ability checks are part of the general action resolution procedure, which occur after uncertainty has been established, so the outcome of an ability check cannot justify its own uncertainty, because an ability check requires uncertainty to be made in the first place, and the effects of a successful ability check can’t be applied if the ability check is never made. Spells and certain class features and monster features sidestep the question because they have more specific action resolution procedures that contradict the general action resolution rules requiring uncertainty.</blockquote>

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