Fantasy and Rapier Wit and Mental Stun recovery for Bard vs Druid - Permanent?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

What if you get HT-20 to the Affliction?
With 0 HT to "roll" to recover, if it is made permanent, well... You'd never recover.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I believe you always get a recovery roll, regardless of how low your effective score is, and always succeed - indeed, critically succeed - on a 3 or 4.

Basic Set 343's "may not attempt a success roll if your effective skill is less than 3" has an exemption for defense rolls

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.1.3 added three other exemptions:

Resistance rolls to magic or poison,
most forced IQ and HT rolls,
any other resistance roll against a force directly targeting a living or sapient being

mental stun would be a "forced IQ roll" and physical stun would be a "forced HT roll" I would assume

Given that this goes into so much detail about specific kinds of resistance rolls which are exempted, rather than simply stating a blanket exemption for all resistance rolls, this implies that there are resistance rolls which can't be attempted with an effective resistance of 2 or less, so long as:

1) the being resisting is not sapient
2) the being resisting is not alive
3) the being is not resisting magic
4) the being is not resisting poison
5) the being is not "forced" to resist w/ IQ or HT

Despite this, Powers 117's "Absolutes" section is inconsistent with the FAQ, as P118's Instant-Death Attacks summaries Affliction 19 (HT-18; Heart Attack,
+300%) [760] as "could instantly kill anyone with human-level HT (20 or less)".

HT 20 with a -18 penalty reduces it to HT 2, which implies you can't roll to resist the Heart Attack at all, yet per the FAQ treating forced HT checks like they were active defenses, it seems you should still be allowed to attempt them to fish for that critical 3 auto-success.