Movement and Position
In combat, characters and monsters are in constant motion, often using movement and position to gain the upper hand.
On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed. You can use as much or as little of your speed as you like on your turn, following the rules here.
Your movement can include jumping, climbing, and swimming. These different modes of movement can be combined with walking, or they can constitute your entire move. However you're moving, you deduct the distance of each part of your move from your speed until it is used up or until you are done moving.
The "Special Types of Movement" section in Chapter 8 gives the particulars for jumping, climbing, and swimming.
Actions That Grant Movement
If an action, bonus action, or reaction allows you to move as part of its effects, this additional movement does not count towards your speed. If it does not require an action, however, it does count towards your speed.
Breaking Up Your Move
You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action. For example, if you have a speed of 30 feet, you can move 10 feet, take your action, and then move 20 feet.
Moving Between Attacks
If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. For example, a fighter with the Extra Attack feature who has a speed of 25 feet could move 10 feet, attack, move 15 feet, and then attack again.
Using Different Speeds
If you have more than one speed, such as your walking speed and a flying speed, you can switch back and forth between your speeds during your move. Whenever you switch, subtract the distance you've already moved from the new speed. The result determines how much farther you can move. If the result is 0 or less, you can't use the new speed during the current move.
For example, if you have a flying speed of 30 and a walking speed of 40 because a Jedi cast the burst of speed power on you, you could walk 20 feet, then fly 10 feet, and then land to walk 10 feet more.
Difficult Terrain
Combat rarely takes place in bare rooms or on featureless plains. Boulder-strewn caverns, briar-choked forests, treacherous staircases—the setting of a typical fight contains difficult terrain.
Every foot of movement in difficult terrain costs 1 extra foot. This rule is true even if multiple things in a space count as difficult terrain.
Low furniture, rubble, undergrowth, steep stairs, snow, and shallow bogs are examples of difficult terrain. The space of another creature, whether hostile or not, also counts as difficult terrain.
Being Prone
Combatants often find themselves lying on the ground, either because they are knocked down or because they throw themselves down. In the game, they are prone, a condition described in appendix A.
You can drop prone without using any of your speed. Standing up takes more effort, costing an amount of movement equal to half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 feet, you must spend 15 feet of movement to stand up. You can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0.
To move while prone, you must crawl or use powers that teleport. Every foot of movement while crawling costs 1 extra foot. Crawling 1 foot in difficult terrain, therefore, costs 3 feet of movement.
Moving Around Other Creatures
You can move through a nonhostile creature's space. In contrast, you can move through a hostile creature's space only if the creature is at least two sizes larger or smaller than you. Remember that another creature's space is difficult terrain for you.
Whether a creature is a friend or an enemy, you can't willingly end your move in its space.
If you leave a hostile creature's reach during your move, you provoke an opportunity attack, as explained later in the chapter.
Flying Movement
Flying creatures enjoy many benefits of mobility, but they must also deal with the danger of falling. If a flying creature is knocked prone, has its speed reduced to 0, or is otherwise deprived of the ability to move, the creature falls, unless it has the ability to hover.
Creature Size
Each creature takes up a different amount of space. The Size Categories table shows how much space a creature of a particular size controls in combat. Objects sometimes use the same size categories.
Size Categories
| Size | Space |
|---|---|
| Tiny | 2 1/2 by 2 1/2 ft. |
| Small | 5 by 5 ft. |
| Medium | 5 by 5 ft. |
| Large | 10 by 10 ft. |
| Huge | 15 by 15 ft. |
| Gargantuan | 20 by 20 ft. or larger |
Space
A creature's space is the area in feet that it effectively controls in combat, not an expression of its physical dimensions. A typical Medium creature isn't 5 feet wide, for example, but it does control a space that wide. If a Medium gamorrean stands in a 5-foot-wide doorway, other creatures can't get through unless the gamorrean lets them.
A creature's space also reflects the area it needs to fight effectively. For that reason, there's a limit to the number of creatures that can surround another creature in combat. Assuming Medium combatants, eight creatures can fit in a 5-foot radius around another one.
Because larger creatures take up more space, fewer of them can surround a creature. If five Large creatures crowd around a Medium or smaller one, there's little room for anyone else. In contrast, as many as twenty Medium creatures can surround a Gargantuan one.
If a square costs extra movement, as a square of difficult terrain does, you must have enough movement left to pay for entering it. For example, you must have at least 2 squares of movement left to enter a square of difficult terrain.
Squeezing into a Smaller Space
A creature can squeeze through a space that is large enough for a creature one size smaller than it. Thus, a Large creature can squeeze through a passage that's only 5 feet wide. While squeezing through a space, a creature must spend 1 extra foot for every foot it moves there, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage while it's in the smaller space.
Variant: Playing on a Grid
If you play out a combat using a square grid and miniatures or other tokens, follow these rules. Squares. Each square on the grid represents 5 feet. Speed. Rather than moving foot by foot, move square by square on the grid. This means you use your speed in 5-foot segments. This is particularly easy if you translate your speed into squares by dividing the speed by 5. For example, a speed of 30 feet translates into a speed of 6 squares. Entering a Square. To enter a square, you must have at least 1 square of movement left, unless the square is diagonally adjacent to the square you're in (discussed below). Corners. Diagonal movement can't cross the corner of a wall, large tree, or other terrain feature that fills its space. Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two things—whether creatures or objects—start counting squares from a square adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other one. Count by the shortest route. Diagonals. When measuring range or moving diagonally, the first diagonal square counts as 5 feet, but the second diagonal square counts as 10 feet. This pattern of 5 feet and then 10 feet continues whenever you're counting diagonally, even if you move horizontally or vertically between different bits of diagonal movement. For instance, a character might move one square diagonally (5 feet), then three squares straight (15 feet), and then another square diagonally (10 feet) for a total movement of 30 feet.