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:
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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?)
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Brad the Fighter is facing a pair of wizards, who stand side by side. First, he fails his saving throw against a fear spell, and thus must use his action to Dash away. 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'? 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.
Best Answer
"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):
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:
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:
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.
For your Specific Examples
Sculpt Spell is more specific than the Stunned condition. The Stunned condition says "for all Dexterity Saving Throws, you automatically fail", and Sculpt Spell says "for this specific Dexterity Saving Throw, you automatically succeed". So a Stunned character in the middle of a Fireball sculpted to protect them would still succeed and take no damage.
The confluence of Fear and Compulsion is exactly the kind of DM fiat situation I hinted at. Two effects which both make sweeping statements about what the target must do. As DM, I'd probably rule that the target tries to do both: both moving away from the first caster, and laterally around the second caster, using their Action to Dash as they do so. Some other DMs might rule that Fear negates the features of Compulsion, or that one causes the other effect to disappear entirely, either based on timing or based on the spellcasting abilities of either caster.