DnD Conditions: Full Reference List

Conditions are one of the most mechanically consequential pieces of Dungeons & Dragons — the 14 official conditions from the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide cover everything from minor impairment to complete incapacitation. Whether a character is frozen in fear, paralyzed by a lich's touch, or simply restrained by magical vines, knowing exactly what each condition does — and does not — change is the difference between a good tactical decision and a wasted turn.

Definition and scope

A condition in D&D 5th Edition is a named, rules-defined status that modifies a creature's capabilities for a specific duration. Conditions don't stack in intensity — a creature that is frightened twice isn't more frightened — but a creature can hold multiple different conditions simultaneously, and the interactions between them matter enormously in play.

The 14 official conditions verified in the Player's Handbook (p. 290–292) are:

1. Blinded — The creature can't see, automatically fails ability checks requiring sight, and attack rolls against it have advantage while its own attacks have disadvantage.
2. Charmed — The creature can't attack the charmer or target them with harmful abilities or effects; the charmer has advantage on social Charisma checks against the creature.
3. Deafened — The creature can't hear and automatically fails any ability check requiring hearing.
4. Exhaustion — A tiered condition with 6 severity levels; level 1 imposes disadvantage on ability checks, level 5 reduces speed to 0, and level 6 is death.
5. Frightened — The creature has disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls while the source of fear is in sight, and it can't willingly move closer to that source.
6. Grappled — The creature's speed becomes 0. It ends automatically if the grappler is incapacitated or the creature is moved beyond the grappler's reach.
7. Incapacitated — The creature can't take actions or reactions. Many conditions — paralyzed and stunned, for example — build on this one.
8. Invisible — The creature can't be seen without special senses; it has advantage on attacks, and attacks against it have disadvantage.
9. Paralyzed — The creature is incapacitated and can't move or speak, automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saves, and any attack within 5 feet is a critical hit on a hit.
10. Petrified — The creature is turned to stone, becomes incapacitated, and is treated as an object. It has resistance to all damage and is immune to poison and disease.
11. Poisoned — The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks.
12. Prone — The creature can only crawl, has disadvantage on attacks, and melee attacks against it have advantage while ranged attacks have disadvantage.
13. Restrained — Speed becomes 0, attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature makes attack rolls and Dexterity saves at disadvantage.
14. Stunned — The creature is incapacitated, can't move, speaks only falteringly, automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saves, and attacks against it have advantage.

Exhaustion stands apart from all 13 others because it's cumulative — a creature tracking multiple exhaustion levels is managing a degrading resource, not a binary on/off state.

How it works

Conditions are imposed by spells, class features, monster abilities, environmental effects, and specific weapon properties. A condition persists until its specified end condition is met: a duration expires, a saving throw succeeds, a concentration spell drops, or a particular action removes it (such as standing up from prone, which costs half a creature's movement).

The key dimensions and scopes of D&D include conditions precisely because they function as a layer of mechanical grammar — they describe how a creature interacts with the action economy, not just what resources it has remaining. Incapacitated is the clearest example: eight conditions (charmed, frightened, paralyzed, petrified, stunned, and unconscious among them) include incapacitated as a component, meaning they inherit its "no actions or reactions" restriction as a baseline.

Unconscious deserves a separate note: it is technically not one of the 14 core conditions in the PHB condition list, but it appears throughout the game and imposes blinded, incapacitated, dropped items, speed 0, automatic failure on Strength and Dexterity saves, and advantage on all attacks — with hits within 5 feet automatically becoming critical hits.

Common scenarios

The most frequently encountered conditions in typical D&D play cluster around a few dominant sources. The Hold Person spell (a 2nd-level wizard and cleric staple) inflicts paralyzed, which is among the most punishing conditions for melee creatures due to the automatic critical hit rule on adjacent attacks. Prone comes up constantly due to battlefield movement, shoves, and spells like Thunderwave. Grappled pairs with prone in what experienced players call the "grapple-shove" combination — restraining movement then knocking prone to give advantage to all melee attackers for no spell slot cost.

For newer players exploring frequently asked questions about D&D, the most common confusion involves frightened: many assume it forces a creature to run away, but the rule is more specific — it simply prevents voluntary movement toward the source and imposes disadvantage on checks and attacks while that source remains visible.

Decision boundaries

Frightened vs. Charmed — Frightened impairs offensive capability; charmed protects the charmer specifically. Neither prevents the affected creature from acting against third parties.

Paralyzed vs. Stunned — Both impose incapacitated status, but paralyzed adds automatic critical hits on adjacent attacks. Against melee-heavy enemies, the damage differential is dramatic.

Restrained vs. Grappled — Restrained is strictly worse for the affected creature: it adds disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saves, which grappled does not. Restrained cannot be ended by the restrained creature using a contested check the way a grapple can — it requires the specific removal method verified in the restraining effect.

Understanding these distinctions is foundational to the broader mechanics of how D&D works — conditions are where abstract rules become concrete, where a monster's legendary action suddenly means something very specific, and where the difference between a near-win and a TPK sometimes fits in a single sentence.