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2024-04-09, 09:24 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2014
Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
Hi everyone.
I've been playing 5e for a while, ever since I found a group that I enjoy playing with a while back. One of the players asked me a question about rules that I answered, but I realized I used some logic that I don't remember where I heard it from. I used to play 3.5 a lot and lurk on the 3.5 forums on this site, and I thought I read somewhere that the priority for conflicting rulings in that edition was that "Specific beats Generic", or some similar saying. I.e. that if you have an overall rule, and then a more specific rule conflicts with that rule, the more specific rule takes priority over the generic ruling and should be followed. My questions about this are as follows:
1) Is this still a relevant ruling in 5e (if it ever was in 3.5, like I said my memory of where I read this is hazy at best).
2) If so, should I take this at face value or are there exceptions to this rule? Are there any common misconceptions about how to handle this rule that I should be aware of?
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2024-04-09, 09:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2018
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Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
"Specific beats General" is still a valid approach, and how the rules are written. If the generic rules say you can't do a thing, but then you have a racial or class feature that says "you can do the thing", then you can indeed do the thing.
E.g., usually Dashing is an Action, but since Rogues have the Cunning Action class feature, they can Dash as a Bonus Action.
For "reference", you can check page 7 of the PHB, under the header "Specific Beats General"
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2024-04-09, 10:14 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2017
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
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2024-04-09, 11:00 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2021
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
It is in the 5e PHB as mentioned by others, yeah. It's honestly so ingrained in the way I think about games personally that I find it odd it ever had to be spelled out in the first place. Obviously the specific rules have to take precedence if they contradict a more general rule, or otherwise there'd be barely any design space in a game at all. It'd be like saying Action Surge doesn't actually do anything because you can only take one action per turn. Ridiculous on its face, right? Maybe there's something I don't know.
I'm not clear on this, but I think I first heard "specific beats general" in the context of explaining how MTG worked when that game was new; did D&D inherit the phrase when WOTC acquired it and made 3e, or am I just wrong?
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2024-04-09, 11:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2014
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
I can only speculate but considering the way MTG is designed, from it's rules code seeming like legalese to it's creator being a mathematician, I would believe this. I think it fits for WotC's streamlining efforts with 3/3.5 and the D20 system bringing a sort of Object-Oriented vibe to DnD to also bring the phrase "Specific beats Generic" along with it.
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2024-04-09, 12:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
When it's a feature against the general rules of the game, the decision is easy, but there isn't much guidance whether a spell takes precedence over a subclass feature, and so on.
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2024-04-09, 12:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2019
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
1. I certainly think specific over general usually applies, though I don't have a reference for it.
2. The general conceit from early in 5e was "Rulings over Rules". Or as I would prefer to say it, "Rules as Guidelines" (RAG). The "Rules as Written" (RAW), have places they are unclear, in conflict, and can result in illogical outcomes. So they are better treated as a set of guidelines to be changed/modified/overruled when they stop working correctly. The important thing is just to have a consistent logic to stick to when making rulings, that's what will keep things from seeming arbitrary.
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2024-04-09, 01:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
If you want the specific rules reference, it's in the first chapter of the PHB, and goes like this:
Originally Posted by PHB
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2024-04-09, 01:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
As others have mentioned, Specific Beats General is indeed part of 5e (in addition to the PHB citation, it's repeated multiple times throughout Sage Advice Compendium.)
Regarding the MTG comparison however, 5e is very much not designed to work like MTG does. MTG rules go beyond being rules to facilitate tabletop play; they're practically pseudocode, intended to remove all resolution ambiguity for a competitive tournament game. And it's understandable that D&D's roots go at least somewhat close to this model given that it too was, in the past, a tournament-style game - but 5e very much is not that, anymore.Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)
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2024-04-19, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2007
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- The Land of Cleves
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Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
Quoth Psyren:
And it's understandable that D&D's roots go at least somewhat close to this model given that it too was, in the past, a tournament-style game - but 5e very much is not that, anymore.Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
—As You Like It, III:ii:328
Chronos's Unalliterative Skillmonkey Guide
Current Homebrew: 5th edition psionics
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2024-04-19, 11:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2015
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- Texas
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Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
+1
+2
Did you mean Specific beats General? MTG is a card game designed to separate whales from money. It is not a TTRPG.
Yes. What's in the book is where you start, not where you necessarily end up.
Maybe it's WotC roots try to do that, but the AD&D attempt to make for better tournament/con/RPGA play was only partly realized, at best.
We have a winner.Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Worksa. Malifice (paraphrased):
Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
b. greenstone (paraphrased):
Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society
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2024-04-19, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2010
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Re: Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?
Oh I definitely agree, and would argue that the very nature of TTRPGs is in conflict with the ideal of highly objective / impartially adjudicable tournament-style games - because at some point you're going to run into a situation the rules don't cover. I was just pointing out that 5e more consciously leaned away from that philosophy than any of its table-lookup-laden predecessors.
Plague Doctor by Crimmy
Ext. Sig (Handbooks/Creations)