Does a werewolf see a doctor or a vet? How does insurance work if you’re injured in wolf form but file a claim as a human? Is there an upcharge for silver surgical instruments? Lot of hidden downsides to the lycanthropy game.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 6, 2018

If a pregnant lycanthrope shifts does the fetus shift too?

— JOE MANGANIELLO (@JoeManganiello) October 6, 2018

man i thought you’d be the one with the background research here…

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 6, 2018

Oh, I know the answer…

— JOE MANGANIELLO (@JoeManganiello) October 6, 2018

Was your Lycanthropy an existing condition, or did you contract it when I bit your hand last week?

— Richard Whitters (@WhittersRichard) October 6, 2018

#DnD Players – I need a bit of help and/or advice please! How do I approach an issue like this? Is it even an issue at all? Am I making too much of it? pic.twitter.com/ETfW6v9mLL

— 🦇 Boo-cy Spook-ner 🦇 (@spoonerwrites) August 23, 2018

I’d say the DM is way out of line, and if it makes you uncomfortable you’re not making too much of it.

— James Wyatt (@aquelajames) September 1, 2018

Is it unreasonable/game breaking for a PC to constantly be using their familiar to grant advantage for themselves in combat (via the ‘Help’ Action)? And is it also fair to say that a monster will attack the familiar in their face? I wouldn’t say it’s game breaking at all. Most familiars will be one-shotted by a foe if they remain in range enough to grant advantage with the Help action, so it has its balance.

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) September 12, 2018

Thanks. I have an Eldrich Knight trying to abuse it, who has actually raged hard at me for having monsters swing at the familiar. He tries to argue that “it’s on my shoulder!”… not realizing that if it’s helping him, it has to be in the monster’s face… and he also actually got mad at me when a monster in a Curse of Strahd game took a swing at it. It’s a raven, and you know what that means in Barovia…

— 👻 Jordan 👻 (@HowlVakarian) September 12, 2018

Ha! On your shoulder only further clarifies that it would be within range to be attacked. The familiar is helpful because it can lend that aid, and creature have to actually choose between it an PCs (so either it draws an attack away from others, or it keeps helping)

— Matthew Mercer (@matthewmercer) September 12, 2018

@JeremyECrawford why did you decide not to give the magic stone cantrip any level scaling power increase like other damaging cantrips?

— Matt Petruzzelli (@mpetruzz) October 3, 2018

Some cantrips scale with level and some don't. The ones that don't scale have an effectiveness that doesn't diminish as you gain levels. #DnD https://t.co/C8dHwy4Vrj

— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) October 3, 2018

Question: Now that we have a few years of perspective. Is there anything you think 4e did better from a design point of view than 5e?

Like, something that was removed or modified that you wished had stayed a core aspect of the game design?Hard to answer, because the 4e I wanted to do and the 4e we ended up publishing were different on a fundamental level. I wanted classes to have different power acquisition schedules, and more thematic ties between power types.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

Example – In the wizard, your daily spells would unlock words of power, the component words needed to cast the spell, as encounter powers. The idea was you’d cast part of a daily spell as an encounter power.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

The 4e we ended up designing lost a lot of thematic power concepts that I think would’ve made the core design a lot stronger.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

That said, skill challenges were an interesting concept, but we simply lacked the time to properly tested them and had this bad tendency to post errata for them without giving it a proper. I‘ve tinkered with a new approach in my Nentir Vale campaign that is working well so far.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

There’s an entire book I could write about 4e and why it ended up the way it did. It’s a great example of a really good concept falling victim to what felt like every single land mine that plagues game development.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

But peeling away from that digression – I’m a little angry at myself for not looting more of the at-will powers. Eyebite is such a fun toy, no idea why we did not pick that one and others up for 5e more often and for more classes.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

It was a core concept, but it was somewhat frustrating. 4e had a tendency to build matrices and try to fill them without thinking through whether that was a good idea, especially in a system where each class had an enormous overhead. Forced power design into narrow niches.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

I would’ve much preferred the ability to adopt any role within the core 4 by giving players a big choice at level 1, an option that placed an overlay on every power you used or that gave you a new way to use them.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

I could definitely see the need to broaden it out and make the whole system more… relaxed, but I really enjoyed the tight structure of it all, especially as a DM. Yeah, it’s brilliant at what it focused on. Best take on D&D combat across all editions.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

So, you could have a ranger who had a subclass that made him a Striker, Leader, Controller or Defender? I like that. Yes, exactly. Might be:
Controller – Animal companion
Leader – Aragorn-like herbalism
Striker – Hunter mechanic
Defender – Mobile interceptor (melee or ranged)

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018

I loved the combats. They were really dynamic. I’ve been looking at how to make my 5e combats more 4e-like, adding auras and abilities with forced movement and shifting. Here’s what I do – put those things in terrain features. That way, even as enemies drop you don’t lose combos or stuff that drives the action.

— Mike Mearls, but Spooky (@mikemearls) October 8, 2018