When knocked to the ground in combat, your D&D character is in the prone condition.
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This condition affects everything from movement to attack rolls.
Gnome Artificer by Caroline Gariba
Falling prone can put you in a serious jamespecially if enemies surround you.
Let’s investigate the prone condition in D&D.
What Is The Prone Condition?
Art Via Wizards of The Coast And Renen Assuncao, David Edwards
Proneis aninteresting conditionin D&D combat that simulates the consequences of falling to the ground.
A rogue archer, for example, couldattack on their turnand thendrop pronetominimizedamage fromreturning enemy fire.
How Do Creatures Become Prone?
Art Via Wizards of The Coast And Renen Assuncao, David Edwards
A character or creature can fall prone in several ways.
You canshovean enemy as your attack if it’s no more than one size larger than you.
(For characters with multiple attacks, a shove constitutes a single attack.)
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You make aStrength(Athletics)checkcontested by thecreature’s Strength(Athletics) orDexterity(Acrobatics).
Why Knock A Creature Prone?
Knocking an enemy prone at the right time in the initiative order can achieve a few things.
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First, it caninterrupt magic usersconcentrating on a spell or about to cast one.
If your character has theExtra Attacksfeature, you could use yourfirst attackto knock the targetprone.
If successful,subsequent attackshaveadvantage.
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Thirdly, once a creature is in theprone condition, you could useGrappleto drop itsmovement speed to zero.
Flying creaturescan also beknocked prone, though you might have difficulty shoving them.
FighterBattle Masterscan use theirTrip Attackwith abowto knock flying enemies prone.
The creature will likely take fall damage as it plummets from the air.
Why Choose To Go Prone?
Unlike most other conditions in D&D, prone has some tactical utility.
If enemies attack you from range,dropping proneimposesdisadvantageon theirattack rolls.
Going prone has no associated movement cost, unlike standing back up again.
As a DM, you canpreventyourplayersfromexploitingthe benefits of theproneconditionby charging melee enemiesat them once they’re prone.
Because not everyone can be a Grappler.
