D&D 5e conditions and tracker

Grappled and restrained are not the same. Grappled sets your speed to 0 and nothing else — you can still attack normally, and attacks against you are not affected. Restrained also sets speed to 0, but adds advantage on attacks against you, disadvantage on your own attacks, and disadvantage on your Dexterity saves. A grapple does not impose restrained unless something says it does.

Incapacitated is a component, not a standalone effect. It only means you cannot take actions or reactions — but paralyzed, petrified, stunned and unconscious all include it, which is why "does this end when they are stunned?" usually resolves to the incapacitated line rather than the condition you were reading.

Prone cuts both ways. Melee attacks against a prone creature have advantage, but ranged attacks against it have disadvantage — so knocking an enemy down helps your fighter and hurts your archer. Standing up costs half your movement.

Unconscious includes prone and drops what you are holding, and any hit from within 5 feet is a critical. That last clause is what makes standing over a downed character so dangerous, and it is the one most often missed.

Exhaustion is the only condition with levels, and its effects are cumulative: a creature at level 3 also suffers levels 1 and 2, so it has disadvantage on ability checks, half speed, and disadvantage on attacks and saves all at once.

It is also the only condition that does not simply end. A long rest with food and drink removes one level, so a character at level 4 is several days from clear. That slow recovery is the point — it is the game’s mechanism for making forced marches, starvation and certain spells genuinely costly.

Level 6 is death, which is worth saying out loud at a table that is casually accumulating levels of it.

None of the fifteen conditions apply in isolation — combat regularly stacks two or three at once, and that is where rulings go wrong. Three combinations worth knowing cold:

Restrained and prone together. A creature both restrained (a web spell, say) and knocked prone does not get attacked with double advantage — 5e only ever applies advantage once per roll, however many sources grant it. What does change: restrained already gives every attacker advantage regardless of range, so a ranged attacker who would normally have disadvantage against a prone target instead has plain advantage, because restrained does not distinguish melee from ranged the way prone does on its own. The restrained creature’s own disadvantage on attacks and Dexterity saves still applies on top.

Paralyzed within 5 feet. Paralyzed already gives attackers advantage and auto-fails the creature’s Strength and Dexterity saves. The clause that gets missed: any hit against a paralyzed creature from within 5 feet is an automatic critical hit, not just an easier one to land — a martial character standing next to a hold person’d target is doubling damage dice on every hit that connects, not merely landing more of them.

Frightened while grappled by the same thing. Frightened stops a creature moving closer to what scares it; grappled sets its speed to 0 regardless of the source. If a creature is grappled by the very thing frightening it, the grapple already prevents movement, so frightened adds nothing further there — but it still imposes disadvantage on the creature’s ability checks and attack rolls for as long as the source is in sight, including any check made to escape the grapple.

Yes, and it is the one condition that changed shape rather than just wording. The 2024 Player’s Handbook replaces the six distinct per-level effects above with a single scaling penalty: each level of exhaustion subtracts twice that level from every d20 Test (ability checks, attack rolls and saving throws alike), and reduces speed by 5 feet per level. There is no longer a level that specifically imposes disadvantage, halves your hit point maximum, or drops speed to 0 as a discrete step — it is one penalty that grows smoothly instead of six separate thresholds.

What stayed the same: all fifteen condition names, the other fourteen conditions’ rules text (unchanged between editions), death at level 6, and recovery of one level per long rest — still conditional on having eaten and had something to drink that day.

The reference above follows the 2014 rules / SRD 5.1 text specifically, which is what the fourteen non-exhaustion conditions have in common with the 2024 book regardless. If your table runs the 2024 PHB, use the scaling-penalty version for exhaustion and this page’s text for everything else.

Does invisible remove the need to make a Stealth check? No. Invisible only means the creature cannot be seen without magical help — it can still be heard, and its location can be detected by any noise it makes or tracks it leaves, which is why a rogue who goes loud while invisible is still findable.

Can a stunned creature take a reaction, like an opportunity attack? No. Stunned includes incapacitated, and incapacitated blocks both actions and reactions — the same reasoning applies to paralyzed, petrified and unconscious.

Does poisoned stop a caster casting spells? Not directly — poisoned only imposes disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. A poisoned character can still cast a saving-throw spell at full effect; a spell that requires a spell attack roll is rolled with disadvantage, because that roll is an attack roll.

Can a restrained creature still cast a spell with only verbal and somatic components? Yes. Restrained does not stop actions, only movement and the creature’s own attack rolls and Dexterity saves — a save-based spell is unaffected; a spell attack roll from a restrained caster has disadvantage.

Announce the condition out loud the instant it is applied, rather than relying on a written note being noticed later — most missed conditions were written down correctly and simply never read.

Pick one physical or digital marker per condition and use it consistently. Which marker means which condition matters less than everyone at the table agreeing on the same one every time.

Treat exhaustion specifically as between-session bookkeeping rather than a during-combat one, since it persists across fights and often across whole sessions — it is the one condition worth tracking on the character sheet itself, not just the initiative tracker.

State the duration trigger out loud the moment a condition lands — "until the end of its next turn", "until it succeeds a save" — because that detail is what everyone forgets three rounds later, not the condition’s existence.