Introduction
Conditions are PF2e's control panel. They change AC, saves, skill checks, actions, targeting, movement, recovery, and social posture. You can play the game while half-remembering them, but you will make worse decisions, and your GM will slowly become a human spreadsheet with snacks.
The practical split is simple: some conditions change math, some conditions change actions, some conditions change targeting, and some conditions change death risk. Once you sort them that way, the condition list stops feeling like vocabulary homework and starts looking like tactics.
Condition Rules You Need First
| Rule | Table Use | Watch For |
|---|---|---|
| Condition values | A numbered condition such as frightened 1 or clumsy 2 uses that value to set severity. | Do not add two copies of the same valued condition together unless a rule tells you to. |
| Highest value applies | If the same condition shows up with different values, the higher value is usually the active one. | Track separate durations only when the lower value might matter later. |
| Reductions affect the condition | When a condition value decreases, apply that decrease to the condition of that name. | Frightened and dying are common places where missed reductions cause bad table math. |
| Turn boundaries matter | Slowed, stunned, frightened, persistent damage, dying, and recovery checks all care about timing. | State the timing out loud before the turn moves on. |
| Flat checks are not skill checks | Concealed, hidden, persistent damage recovery, and several survival effects use flat checks. | Bonuses to skills usually do not help unless the feature specifically says so. |
| Conditions can point at different systems | Off-guard points at AC, hidden points at targeting, wounded points at death, sickened points at recovery. | Do not solve every condition with damage. Sometimes the right move is Stand, Escape, Retch, Take Cover, Treat Wounds, or reposition. |
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Condition Families
| Family | Best Examples | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Math pressure ● | Off-guard, frightened, clumsy, enfeebled, stupefied, drained | These conditions swing checks, DCs, AC, saves, attacks, spellcasting, and durability. They are how small numbers become big outcomes. |
| Action denial ● | Slowed, stunned, paralyzed, grabbed, restrained, prone | These are brutal because PF2e is an action-economy game. Losing one action often means losing the turn you planned. |
| Targeting and senses ● | Concealed, hidden, undetected, unnoticed, invisible, blinded, dazzled, deafened | These decide whether attacks and spells can be aimed cleanly. Pair this with detection and senses. |
| Survival clocks ● | Dying, wounded, doomed, drained, unconscious, persistent damage | These conditions decide whether the encounter is merely scary or about to become an obituary with initiative order. |
| Social posture ● | Hostile, unfriendly, indifferent, friendly, helpful | These are condition-like social states that shape requests, negotiations, and GM rulings. Use them with skill checks and DCs. |
| Affliction pressure ● | Sickened, fatigued, disease, poison | These punish long adventuring days and messy recoveries. Use them with afflictions. |
Priority Conditions
| Condition | Why It Is Important | Best Answers |
|---|---|---|
| Off-guard ● | A -2 circumstance penalty to AC is one of the cleanest ways to improve the whole party's damage output. Rogues and other precision builds love it. | Flank, Trip, Grapple, Feint, hide, use class setup, and coordinate turns. |
| Frightened ● | A broad status penalty to checks and DCs makes enemies easier to hit, easier to affect, and worse at hitting back. | Intimidation, fear spells, Champion pressure, Bard support, and monster abilities. |
| Slowed and stunned ● | Removing actions is often stronger than dealing moderate damage because the target loses options before spending them. | Prioritize prevention, countermeasures, and positioning. If an ally is stunned, protect them until their turn comes back online. |
| Grabbed and restrained ● | Movement stops, off-guard often appears, and escape becomes action tax. Restrained is the emergency version. | Athletics, Escape, forced movement, ally support, reach control, and monster knowledge. |
| Prone ● | Prone makes a creature off-guard and forces awkward movement choices, but ranged cover interactions can make it less one-sided. | Trip, Stand timing, reactions, Step pressure, and avoiding bad terrain. |
| Sickened ● | Broad penalty plus no willing ingestion means potions and elixirs stop being the obvious escape button. | Retch, condition-removal magic, alchemical support before the fight, and avoiding poison/disease vectors. |
| Persistent damage ● | It keeps hurting at turn end and can punish a downed character hard. | Spend actions to help, use water or scene answers when allowed, and read the persistent damage guide. |
| Dying and wounded ● | Wounded makes the next dying event much more dangerous. Do not treat standing up from 0 HP as a full reset. | Hero Points, Medicine, healing, retreat discipline, and the dying and death guide. |
| Concealed and hidden ● | Flat checks turn reliable offense into a gamble and can protect fragile creatures. | Seek, good lighting, special senses, area effects, and Stealth. |
| Clumsy, enfeebled, and stupefied ● | These attack different build foundations: Dexterity, Strength, and mental casting. | Match the condition to the target. Enfeebled is not exciting against a Wizard; stupefied is delicious there. |
| Drained and doomed ● | Deadly when they show up, but usually less common than frightened, off-guard, and action denial. | Rest, restorative magic, avoiding undead pressure, and not pretending Constitution damage is just flavor text. |
| Fascinated ● | It can shape attention, but it is fragile in many combat scenes. | Use it for setup, social pressure, or narrow tactical windows rather than building the whole plan around it. |
Off-Guard Is The Table's Favorite Condition
Off-guard matters because AC is a target number, and PF2e's four-degree success system makes every +1 and -1 pull double duty. Lowering AC by 2 does not merely make hits more common. It also pushes some hits into critical hits.
The most common sources are positioning and skill play: flanking, Trip, Grapple, Feint, hiding, ambush positioning, and class features that reward setup. This is why Rogue, Swashbuckler, Fighter, Monk, and many animal-companion builds care so much about the condition.
Hot take: if your martial party is not creating off-guard regularly, it is leaving damage on the floor and then asking the Wizard to mop it up with a spell slot.
Frightened Is Better Than It Looks
Frightened applies a status penalty to checks and DCs. That means attacks, saves, skill checks, spell DCs, and many class DCs can all be affected. Because frightened usually decreases over time, it rewards coordination: frighten the enemy before the Fighter swings, before the Cleric casts a save spell, or before the Rogue tries to finish the problem.
Intimidation is the basic doorway, but Bard compositions, divine and occult spells, Champion pressure, monster abilities, and hobgoblin fear options can all make frightened part of the party's plan. Some ancestry options also change fear recovery or fear durability, so condition literacy is not just a caster problem.
Prone, Grabbed, And Restrained
Prone is a positioning condition. It makes movement awkward, often creates off-guard, and forces the target to spend an action to Stand if they want normal movement back. It is strongest when your party has reactions, reach, difficult terrain, or a reason to punish the Stand action.
Grabbed and restrained are control conditions. Grabbed stops normal movement and creates vulnerability; restrained is much worse and should be treated like a real emergency. These conditions make Athletics and Escape decisions matter because the target is not just losing space. It is losing actions.
For GMs, the Monster Core and Monster Core 2 creature roster makes this family especially important. Big creatures, swarms, troops, incorporeal enemies, and constructs do not all interact with body control the same way. Check traits before assuming Grapple, Trip, or restraint solves the encounter.
Slowed, Stunned, And Quickened
PF2e's action economy is tight. Slowed reduces the actions a creature regains at the start of its turn. Stunned can prevent acting and spends down lost actions across turns. Quickened adds an extra action for a limited use, such as Stride or Strike depending on the effect.
The practical rule is this: action-changing conditions are not just conditions, they are turn rewrites. If a monster loses one action, it may lose the ability to Stride, Strike, and still use its two-action ability. If a character loses one action, their whole spell, reload, stance, potion, or movement plan may collapse.
Use three-action economy and actions and activities with this section. Slowed and stunned are where players learn that "only one action" is not a small sentence.
Concealed, Hidden, Undetected, And Unnoticed
Detection conditions answer one question: how confidently can a creature be targeted?
Concealed usually means a flat check can cause a targeted effect to fail. Hidden means the enemy knows the space but still has targeting uncertainty. Undetected means the enemy does not know the exact space. Unnoticed means the enemy does not know you are there at all.
These conditions connect Stealth, Perception, detection and senses, darkness, smoke, fog, invisibility, cover, and monster senses. They are also where table clarity matters most. The GM should say whether a creature is observed, concealed, hidden, undetected, or unnoticed, because each state changes legal targeting and player expectations.
Sickened, Clumsy, Enfeebled, Stupefied, And Drained
These are build-pressure conditions.
Clumsy punishes Dexterity: AC, Reflex, and Dexterity-based checks suffer. Enfeebled punishes Strength: melee damage and Strength-based checks become worse. Stupefied punishes mental work and spellcasting reliability. Drained attacks Constitution-based durability and can be frightening on already-injured characters.
Sickened deserves special attention because it combines broad penalty with recovery friction. A sickened creature cannot willingly ingest things, which means potions, elixirs, and certain consumable plans may be unavailable until the condition is reduced. That makes alchemical items, consumables, and recovery timing more tactical than "drink bottle, feel better."
Dying, Wounded, Doomed, And Unconscious
Dying is the immediate death clock. Wounded is the warning label that says the next trip to dying starts worse. Doomed lowers the ceiling before death. Unconscious removes your agency and makes defense uglier.
This is not flavor text. A character who is healed from 0 HP is not magically out of danger if wounded is still on the sheet. Player Core gives the baseline death procedure, Medicine and healing magic help stabilize the mess, and Hero Points can be the difference between a dramatic comeback and a new character portrait.
Player Core 2 adds more survival hooks through ancestry and class options. Catfolk, tengu, dhampir, hobgoblins, and several class kits can interact with doomed, drained, frightened, dying, or the recovery check economy. The right reading is not "I am immortal." The right reading is "I have a better emergency button, so I should still avoid needing it."
Persistent Damage
Persistent damage is dangerous because it has timing. It applies at the end of the affected creature's turn, then the creature gets a flat check to recover. Multiple types can matter, and a downed creature taking persistent damage can turn a recoverable situation into a death spiral.
Alchemists, fire effects, bleed effects, poison, acid, and monster abilities all use this pressure. The best parties do not merely celebrate persistent damage on enemies. They also know how to help allies clear it when the same trick comes back across the table.
Read the dedicated persistent damage guide if your table uses a lot of bombs, hazards, burning terrain, bleeding monsters, or poison.
Player Core 2 Condition Hooks
| Option | Condition Angle |
|---|---|
| Alchemist ● | Bombs and alchemical items can create off-guard, frightened, sickened, persistent damage, concealment, and condition-removal windows. |
| Champion ● | Reactions and shield play become stronger when allies are grabbed, prone, frightened, or forced into bad positioning. |
| Swashbuckler ● | Panache play often lives near off-guard, movement, skill actions, and enemy positioning. |
| Hobgoblin ● | Fear, smoke, disease, poison, drained, and Intimidation make condition timing central to the ancestry. |
| Catfolk ● | Survival and sense options can interact with doomed, dying, recovery checks, and hidden or undetected threats. |
| Dhampir ● | Undead-adjacent assumptions change healing, drained pressure, and affliction preparation. Powerful, but not casual. |
GM Core Adjudication
GM Core's best condition advice is practical: keep the game moving and make consequences legible. If a player throws sand in a creature's eyes, swings from a chandelier, slams a barrel into a hallway, or uses terrain creatively, you can resolve the moment with a check, a DC, and a temporary consequence. A one-round penalty, off-guard opening, or sensory complication is often cleaner than inventing a permanent subsystem.
Hazards and environments are natural condition engines. Smoke can create concealment. Darkness can create hidden or undetected states for creatures without the right senses. Disease can make sickened difficult to clear. Long travel can create fatigue. Complex hazards can combine damage, movement pressure, and conditions in encounter mode.
Monster traits also matter. Constructs, swarms, incorporeal creatures, troops, and unusual bodies may resist or ignore conditions that assume normal anatomy, footing, fear, poison, or grappling. Use creature traits, stat blocks, and encounter building before turning every monster into a sack of penalties.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Adding two copies of frightened together | Use the higher relevant value unless a rule says otherwise. Track duration if it might matter later. |
| Forgetting that off-guard affects AC | Apply the AC penalty before checking for hits and critical hits. This is the whole point. |
| Treating slowed as immediate action loss after it appears mid-turn | Slowed normally matters when the creature regains actions at the start of its turn. |
| Letting stunned and slowed double-dip | Stunned and slowed overlap in action loss. Apply the actual rule interaction instead of punishing twice because both words are scary. |
| Forgetting sickened blocks willing ingestion | Potions and elixirs are not automatic answers while the creature remains sickened. |
| Treating hidden and undetected as the same | Hidden gives a known space with targeting uncertainty. Undetected means the exact space is unknown. |
| Healing a dying character and ignoring wounded | Wounded changes future dying math. Recovery is not finished just because HP is above 0. |
| Hiding conditions in GM notes only | State visible effects clearly. Players need enough information to make legal, satisfying decisions. |
Best Links
Start with conditions in combat, dying and death, persistent damage, detection and senses, actions and activities, and checks and DCs.
For player tools, use Athletics, Intimidation, Stealth, Medicine, combat spells, weapons, weapon traits, and consumables.
For GM use, pair this with GM screen reference, hazards, environment, creature traits, and Monster Core 2 troops and swarms.
Hot Takes
Off-guard is the best condition in ordinary play because it asks very little and pays the whole party.
Frightened is not just a debuff. It is a party-wide accuracy spell wearing an Intimidation jacket.
Slowed 1 is often more valuable than another damage rider. Damage ends fights; action denial decides whether the enemy gets to fight back first.
Sickened is secretly one of the meanest conditions in the game because it attacks both math and recovery. The bottle does nothing if the character is too nauseated to drink it.
Return to the PF2e rules guide.
