[Timothy M. Patrick]

Being a PDF e-book though, this would not be Missions legal correct?

Unless Bull comes down with some drastic change this will be missions legal October 25th 2014

[DeathStrobe]

I do have to apply one criticism to all the books and supplements that have been coming out. Where are the indexes? Shadow Spells might only be 24 pages but an index would really be nice anyway. And for the bigger, 200+ page supplements, it's a pain not to have them.

You know, that actually sounds like it'd be a great idea. Remember the index from SR4a? Something like that on the website, or as downloadable pdf, would be awesome.

Sounds like something someone could put together on the forum, actually.  Not to imply I'm volunteering for it, but I could probably assist...

Agreed - that would be a great thing to have.

There is a redditor who is trying to make a SR5 super book. He's looking for help if anyone gots the time. Its just a "quick" guide to all the complex SR5 tests

http://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowrun/comments/28b4q3/the_shadowrun_5_superbook/

[incrdbil]

It still disappoints me how people fail to grasp the basic difference between ebook production and print book production.

Print Book content has to be finalized far in advance for proofing, relay of proofing, and finalizing between the creator and the actual facility creating the product.  The creation of the printed product, with non-recycled art is more complex, and is going to take longer time. Page Count matters. Some things just can't be included, because sometimes one more half page of material really means you have to add a lot more pages, and a cost increase beyond your desired cost point. Then there is the time for production, shipping, preparation for distribution, distribution, then actual arrival of a product.  That is a very significant amount of time.  There is a significant difference in time for finalization of ebook product and printed product--so to call it 'Day One DLC'--well, its uncalled for, and ridiculous when you factor in the real differences in speed of ebook to electronic distribution versus the speed of printed book in your store, and the necessary decision to split things between teams due to content limitations for the print product..

Adding some elaborate conspiracy theory to this is just the icing on the cake of annoyance.

[S.Miles]

The DLC feeling comes from the timing (which is mostly unfortunate) and the fact, that Shadow Spells includes things you need for SG. If SG would work on its own with SP being a nice addition, the feel woul be a real "expansion", not a DLC.
It's like selling unfinished games and finishing them up with DLCs, which you have to pay for again. It's not about the money aspect, or the fact that there is even additional content. It's about the fact of the customer feeling he is getting an unfinished product at the price of a finished product and afterwards having to pay for the finished product without it being in the state, that he wanted it to be.

PDFs are ok, if you have the infrastructure for them. But for SR I personally would prefer having ~5 books at the table and everything except the most exotic stuff in there. As it looks right now, I'll be needing 10+ Books + 20 PDFs and 12 Errata to run a game ruleswise. And that just sucks. The fewer books you need ruleswise, the better. I think this aspect fuels into it as well. Getting every book "extended" by 20 pages in some DLC makes you want those 20 pages in the book itself, so you have them, where you need them.

[Tarislar]

It's stuff cut out of Street Grimoire so they could sell it separately.

Now I'm not a fan of the "reference X Item in A-Book but X Item description is in B-Book", that has been seen a few times now, but, I am not sure I'd call Shadow Spells a blatant bid to sell it separately. 

Print Products have a Page Count limit.

If they stuffed Shadowspells material into SG & extended the Page # then you'd end up paying $10-15 more for SG instead of having a $7 PDF to get on the side.

[S.Miles]

@Tarislar:
And I would go for 15$ more. It's a difference of 8$ total, but I would not have to have the pdf as sperate reference and instead have everything in one book and place. To me, that's much better in any way.

[Zwischenzug]

Given how scattered content is in these books to begin with, I reckon having two books doesn't make much difference.

[Chance]

It sounds like it's mostly crunch too without any fluff. In the vein of Magical Societies or whatever that one 4th edition PDF was called.

[Michael Chandra]

I personally wouldn't call several magical societies, a new magical threat and a group of Talismonger-killers without any fluff myself. Granted, if I recall correctly the societies are rather much British, but it's still quite usable for extra flavour.

[incrdbil]

@Tarislar:
And I would go for 15$ more. It's a difference of 8$ total, but I would not have to have the pdf as sperate reference and instead have everything in one book and place. To me, that's much better in any way.

To you, To others, maybe not. 

[firebug]

I like the new direct spells.  The specific HMHVV spells seem out of place to me.  Shadowrun never seemed like they'd have such...  I dunno.  None of the spells feel like they were made by someone for a single purpose.  They feel more "general purpose".

But I suppose players can make spells too, it just doesn't come up a lot.

[MijRai]

I like the new direct spells.  The specific HMHVV spells seem out of place to me.  Shadowrun never seemed like they'd have such...  I dunno.  None of the spells feel like they were made by someone for a single purpose.  They feel more "general purpose".

But I suppose players can make spells too, it just doesn't come up a lot.

Not even Slay (Thing) or things along those lines?

[Michael Chandra]

I got half a dozen spells to add to the SWAT team design, and half a dozen spells ready for use by enemies. ^_^

[firebug]

I like the new direct spells.  The specific HMHVV spells seem out of place to me.  Shadowrun never seemed like they'd have such...  I dunno.  None of the spells feel like they were made by someone for a single purpose.  They feel more "general purpose".

But I suppose players can make spells too, it just doesn't come up a lot.

Not even Slay (Thing) or things along those lines?

Those are different, since they're presented with a variable.  The Slay spell exists, but it has a version for each different target.

[MijRai]

I like the new direct spells.  The specific HMHVV spells seem out of place to me.  Shadowrun never seemed like they'd have such...  I dunno.  None of the spells feel like they were made by someone for a single purpose.  They feel more "general purpose".

But I suppose players can make spells too, it just doesn't come up a lot.

Not even Slay (Thing) or things along those lines?

Those are different, since they're presented with a variable.  The Slay spell exists, but it has a version for each different target.

Good point.  Niche spells are a bit less common, though I vaguely remember a couple others elsewhere.