As we all know from page 7 of the Player's Handbook, "Specific Beats General". The way it discusses 'general' and 'specific' is basically that 'general' means the standard game rules, as given in chapters 7-10 (and, I suppose, much of the Dungeon Master's Guide); and the 'specifics' are things like class features, racial traits, spells, conditions, and magic items.

But is there a hierarchy of specificity, or different levels of specific-ness? Is a magic item "more specific" than a spell? More or less than a condition?

In most cases, they both apply, and there are rules for how to combine them, but sometimes you have one exception that says "you can" and another that says "you can't". Is there any actual rules guidance for how to untangle those, or is it just down to the DM to decide which effect takes precedence?

I hesitate to give specific examples, which may tend to drive answers in the direction of discussing those examples rather than the overall idea that some rules are 'more specific' than others.

But, purely for the purpose of clarifying the kind of things I'm talking about:

• Brad the Fighter has been Stunned, and as a result automatically fails all Dexterity saves. He finds himself within the area of a fireball cast by his Evoker friend, who uses Sculpt Spells to allow Brad to automatically succeed the save. (I certainly think Sculpt Spells wins for storytelling reasons; but is there something that would make Sculpt Spells inherently more specific than Stunned?)




• Brad the Fighter is facing a dragon and its wizard ally, who stand side by side. First, he fails his saving throw against the dragon's Frightful Presence, and thus cannot move closer to the dragon. However, he then fails his save against the wizard's compulsion spell that demands that he must run towards the pair. (Is one effect more specific than the other? Does the answer change if it were a command spell with the command 'Approach', or if the dragon had instead cast a fear spell? Does "specific beats general" even apply in such a situation?)

I ask this because I have recently heard some claims that, for example, a class ability is 'more specific' than a condition, which confused me, and I wonder if I've missed a game concept somewhere along the way.

"Specific Beats General" is about the effect itself, not where it comes from

"Specific Beats General" doesn't prioritize Item effects over Spells, or Spells over Class Features, or any other possible permutation of sources of features. It's simply a description of the scope of the abilities.

Consider the following item and class feature (invented, probably aren't real):

• 
  Rod of Holding. As an Action, point at a creature with this Rod. That creature is now paralyzed for 1 minute


• 
  Paralysis Resistance. When an effect causes Paralysis against you, roll a d20. On a 10 or better, the effect fails.

In this situation, when I wield the Rod of Holding, I can paralyze anyone I point it at, except for when I point it at someone who has the Paralysis Resistance feature, where even with no saving throw, they still have a 55% chance of resisting the rod. In this case, the "Specific Beats General" wording says that a "General effect" (A rod that paralyzes anyone I point it at) is beaten by a "Specific Situation" (... except for this one creature that can maybe resist the effect).

But you could easily reverse this situation and get the same result:

• 
  Paralyzing Gaze. As an Action, look at a creature. That creature is Paralyzed for 1 minute


• 
  Armor of Paralysis Resistance. When an effect causes Paralysis against the wielder, roll a d20. On a 10 or better, the effect fails.

Now, it's a class feature targeting a creature that has a special item, but it's the same result: The Class Feature is a General Effect (paralyze anyone you look at) being beaten by an Item creating a Specific Situation (... except this creature wearing this magic armor, which resists it 55% of the time).

But this could be beaten. Now consider the following examples:

• 
  Better Rod of Holding. As an Action, point at a creature with this Rod. That creature is now paralyzed for 1 minute. This ignores any effects which partially resist Paralysis, or which have a variable chance of ignoring paralysis.


• 
  Paralysis Resistance. When an effect causes Paralysis against you, roll a d20. On a 10 or better, the effect fails.

Now the Better Rod of Holding will win out over the class feature, simply because the parameters specified by the item have been made more specific. "Cause Paralysis, even if they have a thing which allows them to maybe resist paralysis" is more specific than "maybe resist paralysis effects", which would then be less specific than the Better Paralysis Resistance's "resist ALL paralysis effects", which would then be less specific than the Betterer Rod of Holding's "Cause Paralysis, this cannot be ignored under any circumstances", which is then less specific than... you get the idea.

Some of this comes down to DM fiat (what happens if "Cause Paralysis, ignore immunities" collides with "Cannot be paralyzed, even if the effect says it ignores immunities"??), and I'm only focusing on the interaction between two features/items/whatever because that's simpler to explain. But the Heirarchy of specificity generally just boils down to how many stipulations are made about what an effect says it does. If an effect specifically calls attention to exceptions and circumstantial situations, it's probably a more specific effect than an effect that does not.

Time is usually the best indicator of priority

Basically, create a stack of the effects based on when they where applied to the character. Last one on the stack trumps previous rules. Note that it's important to pay attention to if rules actually clash, so keep track of each rule separately while resolving the stack.

For example, let's take: "Can my character fly?"

1. Flying is not a default ability, so no


2. But I took an avian race that grants flight, so yes


3. But then I added the "clipped wings" (requires flight) flaw, so no


4. But my friend cast fly on me, so yes


5. But the enemy rogue poisoned me before 4 so I'm paralyzed (can't move). Fly only grants a flying movement speed; it doesn't grant any form of "freedom of movement", so no, and 4 should be no in this case. (Order doesn't matter here because it's not a conflict.)

Where spells are involved, it's also important to remember that "Spells do what they say they do, and only what they say they do", so magic should generally trump non-magic. For example, if I am paralyzed, and a spell says I automatically pass my Dex save, the spell should take priority unless the thing causing paralysis explicitly says that magic cannot bypass it.

If you have multiple effects that don't conflict, but can cancel each other out, than you resolve all of those effects in the order they are triggered.