[RPG] Can you stand up from prone while stunned

conditionsdnd-5eprone

If you are Stunned, your movement isn't reduced to 0 (unlike grappled.) Can you stand up from prone while Stunned? Can you also drop prone from standing?

Stunned

  • A stunned creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move, and can speak only falteringly.
  • The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity Saving Throws.
  • Attack rolls against the creature have advantage.

How about with Paralysed? (Identical, except with the additional clause:

  • Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.

In other questions, the bonus damage on Booming Blade on movement doesn't occur on a target standing up from prone, which suggests that standing doesn't count as moving. See Does standing up from prone trigger the secondary damage from the Booming Blade cantrip?

Best Answer

It's up to the DM.

Both booming blade and this issue are going to come down to a DM call as it is not made explicit or clear in the rules.

To me, "a stunned creature ... can't move" seems pretty clear. The difference between this use of "move" and its use in booming blade1 seems clear to me, but it is admittedly not explicit, and may be seen another way by another DM.

I would rule that you cannot stand up from prone while stunned or paralyzed. This is how I've ruled it before and met no objection from my players, even the one who tried to test it out - likely because the ruling is completely intuitive.

We can find some guidance from the grappled condition:

A grappled creature's speed becomes 0

Notice, when you are grappled, your speed is 0, so you cannot "move" in the sense that you cannot change your position relative to other creatures. But you are still able to move your body. It seems natural to me that this is a weaker condition than "you are unable to move". Stating "a creature can't move" includes "your speed is 0", but is a stronger condition, that further restricts any movement at all; and since this means you speed is 0, we cite the rules for being prone:

You can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0.

Again, the implicit nature of all of this means it is a DM ruling, but this ruling seems quite natural and most supported.


1 "If the target willingly moves before then" quite naturally seems to be talking about changing position on the battlefield.