Question re: Run and Gun, FFBA Tables incomplete? Options

[Kerenshara]

I bought and downloaded the PDF for Run and Gun and had a couple questions if there's a DEV around.

(Yes, it's been years, but work literally drove me crazy. Long story, but if you are an old friend you have my email - ask and I'll tell you all about it.)

Problem #1: FFBA no longer stacks? Lots changed between 4th ed and 5th including mages getting tanked on essence loss from bioware for the first time (loss of 1/2 lower) but not stacking FFBA for the first time in 25 years? Not too much an issue - with the Fashion spell (once the magic book appears, for now I can convert 4A to 5) can make Second Skin as good as. It just seems... odd.

(Bigger) Problem #2: FFBA has always had three forms - Shirt, Half and Full-body. The fluff text still supports this... but there's no stat in the associated table for the shirt or half (my old preference, but since it doesn't stack...) nor is the information in the Appendix Table at the back.

OCD minds want to know. I appreciate the time in advance.

S// Kerenshara

[hermit]

You'll find devs on the official Catalyst forums, where nobody is allowed to criticize them. Try asking there; your post may even not be deleted, since it's just a question and no open ciriticzm. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Kerenshara]

Things must have changed a lot since I last posted... usually a question like that got an answer in a few hours during "normal" hours. I didn't expect an answer given the time until tomorrow. Back when, a couple questions like that got made into eratta or added to the FAQ. I was guessing on the former.

Do the DEVs not lurk here any more like they used to??

[Umidori]

I'm a relative SR youngin' myself, picked up the game in late 4E, lurked here for ages before becoming an active community member, but so far as I know only a handful of the freelance writers hang out here any more, and by "hang out" I mean they sometimes show up and comment every now and again.

I occasionally hear nebulous references to some scandal or other, with CGL having a major falling out with a bunch of devs at some vague point in the past, people not being paid, bad blood, that sort of thing, but I've never actually heard anything concrete, only rumors and hearsay mentioned in passing. Lately, though, I'm beginning to wonder if some of it wasn't true - CGL has burned a lot of bridges with me as a customer in just the few years I've been playing SR, I can't imagine how many actual dedicated writers have gotten fed up with them too as business associates.

~Umi

[hermit]

Back when, a couple questions like that got made into eratta or added to the FAQ.

Haha. Errata. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yes, I know CGL released some recently. They're very much at odds with the Missions FAQ, and the supposedly cleared-with-CGL German clarifications in SR4. BReakdown of communications, like always during Hardy's tenure.

I occasionally hear nebulous references to some scandal or other, with CGL having a major falling out with a bunch of devs at some vague point in the past, people not being paid, bad blood, that sort of thing, but I've never actually heard anything concrete, only rumors and hearsay mentioned in passing.

Long, long story short: Loren Coleman, one of the CGL founders, embezzled money (through cluelessness and intermingling company and private funds, or through malice, we never knew and never will know), the license holder (Topps) was pissed because it wasn't getting paid, and neither were authors, artists and printers when CGL tried to capify Topps with money.

A staff member made the issue public, Hardy fired her and anyone speaking up for her. That burned many bridges indeed, but I think it is just a symptom of a different problem. The problem being Jason M. Hardy.

Lately, though, I'm beginning to wonder if some of it wasn't true - CGL has burned a lot of bridges with me as a customer in just the few years I've been playing SR, I can't imagine how many actual dedicated writers have gotten fed up with them too as business associates.

Just as fishes rot from the head down, companies rise and fall with their senior management. In CGL's micro-company framework, Shadowrun's management is called Jason M. Hardy, an aspiring author and feverent Mormon (author f more than a few Mormon religious books) who was hired as the replacement of Peter "Synner" Taylor as Shadowrun developer.

Hardy was fully inexperienced in publishing, and maybe pushed into cold water (though in an interview in the run-up to SR5, he satted he massively overestimated himself). Whatever may be true here, he was not up to the job at first, and despite feeling he learned a lot on the job, he hasn't.

Like many bosses who are overwhelmed and overstrained, he is insecure. Like many insecure bosses, he decides for 'leadership management', or Putin-style administration. Hardy oppresses any criticism, and surrounded himself with authors chosen not primarily for their competence (though some are very competent) but for their willingness to suck up to him. Like many weak bosses, this bullyish behavior makes him feel in charge (and actually ensures he is in charge of his department, results and quality output be damned).

Now, surrounded by yes-men, Hardy of course gets away with any inane idea he has (and occasionally just pushes things through even the yes-men say are bad ideas, like ditching the m+n/2, m>n rule for cyber/bioware). That estranges customers, liek you have experienced. It also makes the authors as a collective shutter down from ciriticism - disregard and ignore it. This makes the audience ever more angry, the criticism ever more vitriolic, and the writers shutter down even more. It'S a vicious cycle and, by this point, it's pretty much impossible to break without getting rid of Jason Hardy and some of his yes-men for a new beginning, or the fanbase, in the hopes somewhere, a new generation of gamers will appear.

Shuttering up at the shadowrun.com forums, CGL chose the latter approach.

[Kerenshara]

I posted my question on the official forums and we'll see if that's the better site or not. I just hope they're as responsive as the old 4A team was because that was really helpful to running my campaigns. I've been a loyal fan of the 6th World since 1989 and still have some of the 1st Ed books around. I love the universe and that transcends what company holds the license, the edition of the rules, the people developing it or the folks writing things. 3rd Ed really disappointed me in general and I kind of think of it the way people think about Star Trek V. Occasionally I dip in for things not covered in the later edition(s) like Man and Machine or Cannon Companion which got into the nitty-gritty in a way that appeals to me and most of the people I play with. I REALLY hope I don't have to wind up cherry picking 5 the same way. I like the setting (fluff) text very well, but I need Crunch Bits™ to run a game smoothly. 4/4A finally gave me a mechanics system (with tweaks, of course) that let me tell the story the way I want to. There's plenty to like in 5 I can steal back if I have to... I love the idea of the inherent limits (I played with ALL optional limits in place for 4A and discovered the game didn't "break" when you did and it encouraged people to make rounded characters not one-trick game-breaking characters) but I wanted them for each linked-stat (Strength affects Driving?) uniquely and it's an easy tweak. Putting back the 4A Essence calculation doesn't require anything more than changing the resulting Essence number on the character sheet.

We'll see what happens.

S// Kerenshara

[Umidori]

My vote is hold off on 5th.

Story time.

So I'm not a long time player of SR, but I'm kind of a long time fan. Way back when the SNES was new and shiny, I fell in love with the bizarre world and adventures of Jake Armitage. At the time I was vaguely aware of the larger tabletop gaming world it was drawing inspiration from, but I never got into it or other games like D&D - just wasn't my thing back then.

Flash forward to about four years ago, when a group of friends who do play tabletop games invite me to help round out their table and are all set to try and sell me on the game, only to find that the mere mention of the name"Shadowrun" has my immediate and keen interest. Dove straight in and haven't looked back. My GM was a tabletop uber-gamer and when I made a cross country move some time later, he set me up with a bunch of his spare books (yeah, spares - like I said, tabletop uber-gamer) to take with me, which I've put to good use.

So when the marketing hype began in earnest for SR5? I was pretty damn stoked. By that point I had begun GMing my own games for a separate group of friends who like me had all previously never been into tabletop gaming. So when the new edition officially released, I naturally went and snapped up my very own copy and started poring through it. I had all these plans for converting our table and starting a fresh campaign. It was gonna be sweet.

But as I read through, as much as I liked certain changes here and there, I noticed others that bothered me a little. Then as I reread, and planned, and tested, and built some characters, I had some misgivings - but I told myself that it was just launch hiccups, that these things that seemed wrong and incomplete were surely all just editing mistakes associated with the first run of books and PDFs. I lamely compared it to when an MMO goes online, and all the servers don't work. Surely my concerns would be addressed shortly, and I should just be patient.

As time went on, I began to realize that the changes weren't coming. I began to realize the errors should never have been there in the first place. I began to feel like I'd been suckered into buying a cheaply made, rushed, incomplete product. I began to realize that the explanation for all the absurd disparities in the rules was a lack of a unified plan, a slap-dash job in which different people must have worked on different sections of the book in complete vacuums from one another, with no cross referencing and no real quality control. I began to realize I had paid good money for garbage which was only barely playable. I began to realize that even if things got fixed in later splatbooks, all that meant was that I'd be paying these people again just for the privilege of having a robustly workable game system.

In short, I felt - and still feel - like I was conned. I regret my purchase extremely.

~Umi

[Kerenshara]

Umidori,

Thanks for the comment. I empathize with some of what you said, and I've already decided what parts I'm lifting to port backwards if I DO skip 5th Ed the way I did 3rd for all but the Fluff and a few Crunchy Bits™ I preferred.

Seeing as how I'm new in returning to Dumpshock after a few years AND I'm asking for replies from DEVs on rule questions, I'm no going to rant about what I DON'T like - I'm more than capable of porting things FORWARD if I can get enough comparative information to build a framework. I went so far as completing a unified system for firearms to make them make IRL sense and relate to one another better. I'm a big chunk of the way finished on a Karma-gen background-driven system for creating characters... mostly to make sure people wound up with organic characters with skills to fit their backgrounds without penalizing their "core competency" effectiveness (I like knowledge skills and "useless" skills like singing or painting which were picked up as a kid... or the skills appropriate to a "real" high school education for example). So I'm more than willing to put brain-sweat into tweaking things but I need enough complete information to make my decisions. And I really DO like most of the 5th Ed "fluff" at least as much as 4th and better than 3rd.

I'd like to see an update to the old 1st Ed NAN books but given the current release schedule, even PDF-only seems a bit optimistic of me. I wanted it for 4th Ed and I've been having to dip into the 1st Ed books and do my best to project forwards.

I'm quite proud of the Firearms conversion system (from a player's perspective, the only "change" is a different set of tables) and I'm trying to reconcile the info between 3, 4/4A and 5 to figure out how/if I can apply the same logic to the new system. The new priority system for char-gen gives me a basis to tweak my nascent Karma-gen background system and even by itself, it's a big improvement IMHO.

I'll probably keep buying the PDFs just for the fluff because I've tried to buy all the books in the past and have been picking up PDFs of the old stuff wherever I can. The universe keeps rolling, no matter who's in charge, and if I wind up waiting for 6th Edition for rules I still need to be familiar with all the fluff being tucked into the main books. I went back and filled in the blanks with the 3rd Ed stuff for that very reason despite not even using the system.

S// Kerenshara

[hermit]

I'd like to see an update to the old 1st Ed NAN books but given the current release schedule, even PDF-only seems a bit optimistic of me.

Well, then you're in luck - a supplement dealing with the Shadows of the Sioux Nation is in the works, going by the Jackpoint login in Coyotes. For a 3rd edition updage on the 1st edition books, there's Shadows of North America.

Personally, I'll stick to the background fluff of 5th for new ideas and elementd to integrate into my own SR universe - which has alreadey deviated a bit, having no dragons civil war thanks to a campaign played and a severe dislike of the way the story was handled in published works. Mostly though, the fluff is the current team's strong side - they have some excellent fluff writers, even if they lack coordination and technical writing skills to put out rules that work. It bhighly depends on the author, though; for a look at the hit-and-miss that is current SR writing, look at Stormfront. Unfortunatly, the Shadowrun IO grew to love as a teen, with it's comprehensive, wel-enough-thought-out background, is gone, and it's Star Wars/Games Workshop style cherry-picking that's in order.

[Kerenshara]

Well, then you're in luck - a supplement dealing with the Shadows of the Sioux Nation is in the works, going by the Jackpoint login in Coyotes. For a 3rd edition updage on the 1st edition books, there's Shadows of North America.

Hmm, missed that. And the Sioux Nation was the one I most wanted an update for. I'll be dropping $6 or $7 for certain.

Unfortunatly, the Shadowrun IO grew to love as a teen, with it's comprehensive, wel-enough-thought-out background, is gone, and it's Star Wars/Games Workshop style cherry-picking that's in order.

Eew, you said the GW word. That makes me want to cry.

S// Kerenshara

[hermit]

The GW word is to empathize the seriousness of my disappointment in CGL. ^^

Looking very much forward to the Sioux file myself, but be warned: CGL has a Duke Nuk'em Forever policy towards product release.

[Kerenshara]

The GW word is to empathize the seriousness of my disappointment in CGL. ^^

I know, that's why I said I wanted to cry.

Looking very much forward to the Sioux file myself, but be warned: CGL has a Duke Nuk'em Forever policy towards product release.

I sort of noticed that especially with the never-release of the LE Runners Black Book 2074 and Run and Gun.

S// Kerenshara

[hermit]

What,. they never released the follow-up RBB? I ... uhm ... okay, not to be dicking or anything, but in the same time, the people at Pegasus managed to shuffle out 2 more RBBs. Each with even more extra content. They are taking their time with the translation of Storm Front, though. But I kind of do not mind that. It's maybe best to pretend this book was never written.

[Kerenshara]

I meant the second RBB was supposed to offer a LE version per my FLGS... never materialized.

As to translation... I've been out of the loop a while... are the Germans taking the lead again?

S// Kerenshara

[mister__joshua]

My vote is hold off on 5th.

Story time.

So I'm not a long time player of SR, but I'm kind of a long time fan. Way back when the SNES was new and shiny, I fell in love with the bizarre world and adventures of Jake Armitage. At the time I was vaguely aware of the larger tabletop gaming world it was drawing inspiration from, but I never got into it or other games like D&D - just wasn't my thing back then.

Flash forward to about four years ago, when a group of friends who do play tabletop games invite me to help round out their table and are all set to try and sell me on the game, only to find that the mere mention of the name"Shadowrun" has my immediate and keen interest. Dove straight in and haven't looked back. My GM was a tabletop uber-gamer and when I made a cross country move some time later, he set me up with a bunch of his spare books (yeah, spares - like I said, tabletop uber-gamer) to take with me, which I've put to good use.

So when the marketing hype began in earnest for SR5? I was pretty damn stoked. By that point I had begun GMing my own games for a separate group of friends who like me had all previously never been into tabletop gaming. So when the new edition officially released, I naturally went and snapped up my very own copy and started poring through it. I had all these plans for converting our table and starting a fresh campaign. It was gonna be sweet.

But as I read through, as much as I liked certain changes here and there, I noticed others that bothered me a little. Then as I reread, and planned, and tested, and built some characters, I had some misgivings - but I told myself that it was just launch hiccups, that these things that seemed wrong and incomplete were surely all just editing mistakes associated with the first run of books and PDFs. I lamely compared it to when an MMO goes online, and all the servers don't work. Surely my concerns would be addressed shortly, and I should just be patient.

As time went on, I began to realize that the changes weren't coming. I began to realize the errors should never have been there in the first place. I began to feel like I'd been suckered into buying a cheaply made, rushed, incomplete product. I began to realize that the explanation for all the absurd disparities in the rules was a lack of a unified plan, a slap-dash job in which different people must have worked on different sections of the book in complete vacuums from one another, with no cross referencing and no real quality control. I began to realize I had paid good money for garbage which was only barely playable. I began to realize that even if things got fixed in later splatbooks, all that meant was that I'd be paying these people again just for the privilege of having a robustly workable game system.

In short, I felt - and still feel - like I was conned. I regret my purchase extremely.

~Umi

While each person is obviously entitled to their own opinion, and I'm not excusing anything you see as 'flaws' in Shadowrun 5, I will make 2 points.

1) When you started playing Shadowrun (about the same time as me), 4th edition had already been through 4 printings with Fanpro, then a complete update with Catalyst. It had been out for 5 years. Comparing that to a first printing of a new system and calling the second incomplete is a little false.

2) I take issue with your comment that SR5 is "garbage which was only barely playable". I, and a number of other people, have found it to be eminently playable. In fact, other than the lack of content due to the large library of SR4 stuff we had compared to a single SR5 book, everyone in our group prefers it.

[hermit]

As to translation... I've been out of the loop a while... are the Germans taking the lead again?

Not yet, though given the levels of competence displayed by the american editors, it would likely be for the better, if Pegasus would decide to shoulder that burden (which, I think, they are hesistant to).

I take issue with your comment that SR5 is "garbage which was only barely playable". I, and a number of other people, have found it to be eminently playable.

Repurposed, chlorinated meat and soy sauce made from hair is eminently edible, yet people have a right to call it garbage food. Your quality standards and his may differ; your anecdotal experience does not give you the right to deny the validity of his.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Welcome Back Kerenshara... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[mister__joshua]

Repurposed, chlorinated meat and soy sauce made from hair is eminently edible, yet people have a right to call it garbage food. Your quality standards and his may differ; your anecdotal experience does not give you the right to deny the validity of his.

I did say each opinion was valid, I specifically stated it. Remove the word garbage then, it's the 'barely playable' bit. If it was barely playable then we'd be struggling to play it. That's not anecdotal. There have been barely playable games released in the past. SR5 isn't one of them.

[hermit]

That's not anecdotal. There have been barely playable games released in the past. SR5 isn't one of them.

Since you are talking only about your specific experience, not about some sort of field research, it is anecdotal. And I playtested the system, I found it barely playable. It seems we have different ideas of 'playable'. Which is pklay, there have been people who considered Rulemaster playable. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[mister__joshua]

Since you are talking only about your specific experience, not about some sort of field research, it is anecdotal. And I playtested the system, I found it barely playable. It seems we have different ideas of 'playable'. Which is pklay, there have been people who considered Rulemaster playable. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Fair enough. Maybe I've been let down more in the past. My benchmark for a 'barely playable' system was Cyberpunk v3. (It also holds other titles: Most disappointed I've ever been being among them). We must have different definitions of playable. For me, it's down to the functionality and understanding of the core mechanics and systems (which I found fine, and indeed not all that different to SR4). Obviously it's nice to have more than that, but that's my bar for playability. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

edit: Oh, and SR5 is orders of magnitude better than v3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[hermit]

My benchmark for a 'barely playable' system was Cyberpunk v3.

I didn't even bother to read that shit. The junk paper, the terrifyingly bad illustrations. It seems I just have higher basic expectations than you. Fair enough, as you say. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I find SR5 clunky, unelegant, full of artefacts and mathematically not sound, with a heavy serving of wantonly introduced rules because someone wnated to correct some pet hate about SR4 (see the uselessness of knowledge skills and knowsofts, and how it's basically impossible to build a character who can speak more than one language).

Sure, SR5 is better than CPv3. It is also better than FATAL and Spawn of Fashan. But it is nowhere near what I consider a workable system, which is one that runs smoothly and facepalm-free without resorting to house rules.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I find SR5 clunky, unelegant, full of artefacts and mathematically not sound, with a heavy serving of wantonly introduced rules because someone wnated to correct some pet hate about SR4 (see the uselessness of knowledge skills and knowsofts, and how it's basically impossible to build a character who can speak more than one language).

I would not say it is impossible (I have a character with 2 Languages), but you sure as hell won't see any Polyglots in SR5.

[hermit]

Well. that's a big draw for me.

In most parts of the world, being fluent in two languages is effectively mandatory, if you do not want to live a late stone age life. You can survive as a monolingual in the West, but good luck with that in China, SE Asia, or India. Hell, it's a serious disadvantage not to know English in any EU country. This goes for SR as well - NAN are bilingual (English and whatever tribal language they're raised in), and it's damn mandatory to know Sperethiel or French in Quebec or Tir Tairngire, or Nahuatl as well as the local variation of Spanish in Aztlan. I tend to like to have my characters reflect such things. It's really taxing to build such a character in SR5 and will have a noticable effect on their survivability.

Apart from the obvious bias here ("English was good enough for Jesus ..." comes to mind, and a number of more harsh things), this flies in the face of all the super-urbanized babel that Cyberpunk is supposed to represent.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Well. that's a big draw for me.

In most parts of the world, being fluent in two languages is effectively mandatory, if you do not want to live a late stone age life. You can survive as a monolingual in the West, but good luck with that in China, SE Asia, or India. Hell, it's a serious disadvantage not to know English in any EU country. This goes for SR as well - NAN are bilingual (English and whatever tribal language they're raised in), and it's damn mandatory to know Sperethiel or French in Quebec or Tir Tairngire, or Nahuatl as well as the local variation of Spanish in Aztlan. I tend to like to have my characters reflect such things. It's really taxing to build such a character in SR5 and will have a noticable effect on their survivability.

Apart from the obvious bias here ("English was good enough for Jesus ..." comes to mind, and a number of more harsh things), this flies in the face of all the super-urbanized babel that Cyberpunk is supposed to represent.

Completely agree with you on that one. I am a HUGE believer in Multilingual characters in SR. Sad that they cannot do so effectively anymore. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[Mantis]

That has been my experience with 5th edition as well. We played it, had too many WTF moments and ended with a party wipe. I had more dead characters in the 3 months (every Sunday) we played than I had in the previous 3 years of SR4 game play. The only thing I really like is the revamped matrix rules. Simpler and faster for the most part. Matrix combat seems to be a bit of a slap fight with one side winning only when the other has a bad roll but otherwise I like it.

The rest of it though? Blah. Priority system? What a terrible throw back to the old days. In all the years I've played (since '89), never once has point allocation been the thing that made character building time consuming or difficult. Gear, gear and more gear is always the hang up. What do you need and how much of it? Most folks can thrown down the numbers for stats and skills pretty quickly but everyone lags in the gear section. Cyberware, weapons, commlinks, magic gear and all the little nitty gritty bits they need for each (smartlinks, etc). That is the biggest time hog in character creation. Been that way since day 1 and 5th edition hasn't improved it. The priority system has made it more difficult for my players to make the characters they want though. So that sucks.

Increased skill caps? Well I suppose that is nice but when you combine it with the cost in karma to get there it means you need some pretty long running games. This is especially true with the generally lower karma awards I see between the versions. Your experience may differ but for us, karma rewards were lower while things like increased skill caps increased the karma expenses. Not good.

Limits? Either totally irrelevant or a major hindrance. Case in point. We had a dwarf melee guy who wanted to use an axe. Great. Very fantasy dwarf. Fun. Too bad you can rarely hit with an axe due to its low limit. He would almost always hit this limit but his foes would usually also hit this as well, meaning he missed far more often than he hit. And what weapon would he have to switch to in order to remove this problem? The katana. So there goes his concept. Wow. Great. So every one needs to just switch to katanas cuz they are just soooooo cool. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) Hello 80s. Good to see you again.

Magic? Well they sort of fixed the one shot spell issues but the problem there for us was less that you could one shot folks with a spell and more that the drain was practically irrelevant. They increased the drain codes, which is fine and good but they nerfed the combat spell damage. Pick one or the other please, not both. Variable object resistance isn't much fun either. I'd rather have the player roll his spell effect and then see if he got 3 hits to beat the cameras than roll 9 dice for every camera that could be effected. Who wants to sit through that? Spirits are terrifying in the amount of damage they do and how hard their powers hit. Force x2 for elemental attack damage and force AP? Wow. And people were worried spirits were too powerful before. Add in hardened armour's auto successes for soaking (wow, more terrible 1st edition ideas? sign me up) and they are tough.

Combat revamp? Hmmm. I like the cumulative recoil and strength based recoil compensation. The rest of it? Not so much. All autofire is basically spray and pray. Not really how I see skilled shooters going at it. Short controlled bursts scattered all over to make dodging more difficult? The image doesn't really work. Single attacks? OK. Well that means fewer rolls per pass but the end result is that you just make the combat last longer. Nope. Don't need that. This especially sucks for the players since they get only a single chance each phase to attack and unless they are really good, only a single target to attack. No way to spread out the pain and even up the odds. That initiative system is just 3rd edition with some bits tacked on. More paperwork for the ref and players with advantage that ... hmmm. There isn't one.

Riggers are their own thing again. Great. If this was car wars where that meant something. As most jobs take place in corporate buildings, it is better to have the job of rigger taken on by someone else like the hacker. No need to have this as separate role. Except now it has to be because of the price tag.

Which leads to gear. What the hell? Was there a massive stock market crash and nuyen is now worthless? The cost difference between 4th and 5th edition is crazy! Sure character building increases how much cash you can start with but it isn't 3 times what 4th had, which is on average, how much stuff has increased. Why? Because someone wanted to shoehorn cyberdecks back into the game and couldn't come up with new prices on their own so had to grab them from 3rd ed? Yet not everything goes up in price. Commlinks stay the same price. For no reason at all. There is more but I'm getting into too much of a rant here.

Overall, 5th edition feels less like a new game edition and more like the creators grabbed their favorite bits from previous editions and just tagged them in however they could and then painted it over with a thin veneer of 4th edition mechanics. I don't like it and feel much as Umidori does for having purchased it.