The Condition of My Conditions

It's time to dive into monster design. Before we can do that, we need to address the elephant in the room about D&D and D&D-likes that use 5e: the game has moved away from a battle of hit points to a war of conditions.

It is far too easy to subvert HPs and take out PCs and monsters with spells like hynoptic pattern and force cage. I have a theory that people love playing D&D until a group figures out that casters should drop fireball and shift to spells that debuff monsters.

I played in a 3e campaign where someone rolled a sorcerer. They thought it would be funny to never take a spell that inflict damage. After one session we could see that he had inadvertently created a monster. Grease, glitterdust, and similar spells, usually all stacked on top of a single monster, turned even the mightiest foe into a helpless sack of hit points.

It also irritates me that conditions became so bloated in 5e. This is one area where design intent and design execution drifted. The conditions are overdesigned, making it hard to use them if you want to pare back what they do.

Here's my first pass at rewiring conditions to make them sleeker, easier to use, and cleaner in play.

Reworked Conditions

Far too many spells in D&D shut down creatures. It irritates me to know end. 90% of the time when DMs are stuck pulling their hair out over a party they can’t challenge, it’s because spells or class features leave a creature either unable to act or so thoroughly locked down that they might as well skip their turns.

As a first step toward improving that, I am revising conditions. Conditions in 5e do too much. They have multiple effects, some of which are unintuitive, and add up to make it difficult to run monsters effectively.

I am also trying to move some elements that conditions carry into the core rules. The 2024 revision has a lot of architectural issues with how mechanics are organized. Stuff in the core is put into the periphery or content, and vice versa (hello stealth!). For instance, every spell needs to explain how to target things. Targeting should be in the core rules.

You’ll also note that I generally removed advantage or disadvantage from conditions. There are enough effects that hand out those mechanics that conditions should model their effects using other methods. Is it important in a design? Then slap on as a rider layered on top of the condition.

Finally, I tore out everything that related to auto failing saves. Saves are a critical gatekeeper for keeping the game balanced. Conditions wholesale shutting them down is far too good to be bullet point number three on restrained, a condition originally meant to debuff your speed.

I eliminated all condition nesting, which is why three conditions (Petrified, Incapacitated, and Unconscious) all do the same thing. I think it’s strictly bad system design to put conditions inside of conditions at the core rule level. Instead, designers can add multiple conditions on effects to achieve what they want. Better to give designers flexibility than be overly prescriptive.

Layering Conditions

I designed the conditions to be as minimal as possible. Do you want ghoul paralysis to inflict full body paralysis that leaves a character helpless? Slap the incapacitated condition on top of it. Does the death snake’s poison also mess up a character’s manual dexterity? Specify that the victim has disadvantage on attacks while Poisoned.

Restrained is the poster child for this. Under my redesign, it shuts down movement. You can manually reinsert the other effects in a creature or spell. It was meant to keep you from moving, not make you dead to a save or die effect that goes after Dex saves.

This also works for getting the fiction right in the game. Let’s go back to ghoul paralysis. Nothing terrifies players more than a pack of ghouls coming at them. Here’s what it might look like:

Claw. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 5 (1d4 + 2) Slashing damage and the target must make a DC 10 Constitution save. Failed Save: The target is paralyzed for 1d6 rounds. If the target is already paralyzed, it is instead incapacitated for that duration and falls prone.

Paralyzed is pretty terrible to have on you, but the condition just goes after actions. It takes another attack to put you out of the play entirely. I'd rather have that tool than have paralyzed leap directly to putting you out of play.

Here is the first draft of my re-written conditions:

Blinded

You lose your normal sight, Blindsight, Darkvision, or other forms of vision.

Rules for Lack of Sight: These should be in the core rather than in a condition. I’d say use the following:

• If you cannot see a target, its AC is 20 or its AC, whichever is higher.

• If you cannot see an attacker but they can see you, they have advantage on their attack roll against you.

• If you cannot see a creature, object, or point in space but it is not hidden (it is making noise so you can hear it), you can’t target it if it is more than 10 feet away from you.

Charmed

While a creature charms you, you cannot target it with attacks or spells unless it asks you to or the effect benefits it.

Rules for Social Interaction: This effect might be something that you can slap on creatures with social skill checks. We'll see where we land when I work up the rules for social interactions.

Deafened

You cannot hear noise.

Rules for Lack of Hearing: These should be in the core rather than in a condition. I’d say use the following:

• If you are unable to hear, you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks and cannot detect anything that is fully blocked from view.

Frightened

You cannot use your movement or any spell or ability to move closer to something you are frightened of.

Grappled

While you are grappled your speed is 0 and cannot be increased. When a creature that grapples you moves, you move with it unless you succeed in an opposed Strength check against it as a reaction. Its movement costs 1 extra foot per foot moved for each creature it is grappling.

Hidden

While you are hidden you cannot be targeted by effects and creatures cannot see or hear you.

Incapacitated

You can’t move, take actions, or use bonus actions. All durations of your spells and other abilities immediately end and your class features, feats, and special abilities no longer apply. Creatures can’t treat you as an ally to determine if they gain any special benefits, such as sneak attack.

Invisible

Creatures cannot see you unless they can specifically see invisible creatures. You can attempt to hide even if you do not have cover or lighting conditions that would normally allow you to do so.

Paralyzed

Your speed is 0 and cannot be increased. You cannot use actions or bonus actions.

Petrified

You can’t move, take actions, or use bonus actions. All durations of your spells and other abilities immediately end and your class features, feats, and special abilities no longer apply. Creatures can’t treat you as an ally to determine if they gain any special benefits, such as sneak attack.

Poisoned

If you are poisoned, you take 1d6 poison damage at the start of your turn. After taking the damage, double the number of dice you roll for this damage at the start of your next turn.

If you gain the Poisoned condition while already poisoned, increase the number of dice you roll by 1.

Prone

It costs 1 extra foot of movement per foot you move. Melee attacks against you have advantage. You can stand up from prone as a bonus action.

Restrained

Your speed is 0 and cannot be increased.

Stunned

You can do one of the following on your turn: move, use an action, or use a bonus action.

Note: I scaled back stun because it steps on the paralyzed condition and all of the conditions that effectively take out a creature (incapacitated, petrified, unconscious). With this version of stunned, you are still standing, your spells and features still work, and allies can use you to trigger effects that need nearby allies (sneak attack).

Unconscious

You can’t move, take actions, or use bonus actions. All durations of your spells and other abilities immediately end and your class features, feats, and special abilities no longer apply. Creatures can’t treat you as an ally to determine if they gain any special benefits, such as sneak attack.