Petrified: weight, damage and immunity
Petrified changes both the creature’s material state and its game effects. Keep resistance to damage separate from immunity to a condition; they do not mean the same thing.
Use it at the table
- Transform the creature and its worn or carried nonmagical objects; multiply its weight by ten and stop its aging.
- Apply Incapacitated, Speed zero, Advantage to incoming attacks and automatic failure of Strength and Dexterity saves.
- Apply Resistance to all damage and Immunity to the Poisoned condition. Read other effects separately.
Make the call
A Petrified creature takes 18 points of ordinary damage with no other modifiers. Does its resistance reduce that damage to 9, or make it take no damage at all?
The ruling
It takes 9 damage after Resistance.
Petrified grants Resistance to all damage, not immunity to all damage. With no other adjustments, 18 becomes 9. Its explicit immunity is to the Poisoned condition. The distinction is especially useful when a damage type and a condition have similar names: read the exact benefit instead of extending it to an unstated immunity.
Watch for this mistake
Do not forget the weight increase when deciding how the group transports the creature. Also avoid adding Paralyzed’s automatic-critical clause; Petrified does not include that clause.
Ask the table
What was the creature’s original weight, and are we resolving damage resistance or a condition immunity?
The source rule
SRD 5.2.1, page 186. Read the official PDF.
While you have the Petrified condition, you experience the following effects. Turned to Inanimate Substance. You are transformed, along with any nonmagical objects you are wearing and carrying, into a solid inanimate substance (usually stone). Your weight increases by a factor of ten, and you cease aging. Incapacitated. You have the Incapacitated condition. Speed 0. Your Speed is 0 and can’t increase. Attacks Affected. Attack rolls against you have Advantage. Saving Throws Affected. You automatically fail Strength and Dexterity saving throws. Resist Damage. You have Resistance to all damage. Poison Immunity. You have Immunity to the Poisoned condition.
Source and reuse
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
The explanation, example and table prompt are Table Ready adaptations; source text has been reflowed and tables reformatted. This guide and its printable card are available under the same CC BY 4.0 license. Independent reference; no official affiliation. These rules are optional for our system-neutral adventures.