Prone

Condition Severity: Moderate

Effects

• The character is lying on the ground. A prone attacker has a –4 penalty on melee attack rolls and cannot use a ranged weapon (except for a crossbow). Spell casting while prone suffers a -4 penalty to any concentration check they are required to make (such as combat casting). A prone defender gains a +4 bonus to Armor Class against ranged attacks, but takes a –4 penalty to AC against melee attacks.

Standing up is a move action that provokes an attack of opportunity from any enemy creatures which threaten the square of the prone creature. Standing up from prone is also considered movement, thus disallowing 5-foot steps that round. As soon as a creature declares it is standing up from prone, it no longer suffers any of the penalties (or benefits) for being prone, even when resolving attacks of opportunity provoked by standing up from prone.

While prone, creatures cannot make 5-foot steps, but they can Crawl 5 feet as a move action. Crawling provokes attacks of opportunity. Creatures which crawl remain prone after the crawl action is completed.

A creature which has voluntarily dropped to Prone can elect to ignore any forced movement inflicted upon it as long as it remains prone. However, a creature which was made prone involuntarily gains no such resistance to forced movement until they have had an opportunity to stand up (usually a move action). Note the creature doesn't need to stand up (and, indeed, doing so would remove its resistance to forced movement), merely have the action available that would allow it to stand up.

Ended By

If the ability, trap, or effect description includes specific directions for how the condition is ended, then that is the primary means of ending this condition. In many cases, it is the only way to end the condition. If nothing is specifically listed for ending the condition, then the following methods can be used to end it, instead:

Array

Flat-Footed → Prone → Helpless