Hi !

We, french, have the 3rd edition as the only one which was translated, with all the supplements (boy king, lordly domains, knights adventurous ....).
I don't know anything about the 4th Edition, and bought 5th edition & GPC books once they were released.

We're currently playing GPC, and i was wandering through the 5th edition book these past days. I found things about the context were improved. But in strict terms of rules & game mechanics, i see no change. In a way, it pleases me, why should something that works great change in the new edition ? On the other hand, i'm wondering if i'm missing something of if i misread, being too much " formatted " by the 3rd edition ?

In terms of pure game mechanics, are there any real changes ? Which ones (if you can tell me, so that i don't waste my time reading again things i already know :D).

The only significant change is in character design.
The starting skills and character options for new knights lead to more competent characters than in 3rd edition, with a lot less randomness* - all characters are guaranteed to be knightable by 21.

* When I say randomness, I'm not talking about set attributes and traits and passion scores - you can use the old rolls for those things. What I'm talking about is the way, in the old system, the need to build up skills and loyalty liege to certain values led to a huge variation in the length of time it took to be a knight. The 5th edition skill starting skills and training options eliminate that, and good riddance.

If you can get your hands on Greg's Book of Knights anbd ladies, the new system is included there and massively expanded.

Apart from that very significant change, there's nothing you need worry about.