...how tough do you think it would be for a reasonably smart, medium-skilled GM to convert 2e material to work with 3e?

I'm by no means the best GM in the world, nor am I the smartest guy in my hometown - much less the world...but I did, in the last 6 months, pick up just about every 2e book there is.

Can I still use most of 'em with minimal fuss?

* minimal fuss meaning, can I use most of the fluff on-the-fly, and can I convert NPCs and Monsters with little mathwork and still capture their 'essence'? I'm not looking for an exact skill-for-skill, wound point-for-wound point conversion... just something that's close enough so that the average observer (or one of my players) will sit back after an encounter and feel as though they're the 'same'.

Well, I haven't got the actual rules yet, but from what I've seen here, we should be able to cobble something together that's roughly right(ish).

- As a quick ballpark, I'd reckon 1 Characteristic die per 10% of v2 Stat.

- For Skills, I'd pretty much find the closest equivalent and get Expertise levels in line with v2 (1 Expertise die for having the skill, 2 dice for skill +10%, 3 dice for +20%). I'd then sprinkle a couple of "Specialisations", for skills that aren't quite represented (for instance, AK: Necromancy as a "specialisation" of Education, I'd guess).

- With regards to v2's WS/BS to v3's Weapon Skill/Ballistic Skill, I'd look at the career bonus, working on a +10/20/30 as Expertise 1/2/3. For NPC's I'd eyeball it in a similar way, but maybe grant 1 or 2 less Expertise to make up for Strength/Agility.

- v2 Talent-wise, we should be able to either use "Specialisations" (to represent those "+10% in these circumstances" things) or actual v3 Talents, depending on what we find to fit.

- Wounds we should be able to eyeball, based on a quick comparison between v2 and v3.

All in all, I reckon we should be able to do a "quick & dirty" conversion almost on the fly, but needing a bit more system familiarity and the like before we get more accurate conversion

I'm really looking forward to 3e... but I still dearly love the 2e books that I have (and will continue to buy 'til I have 'em all).

I'm glad to hear that you don't think conversion will be too hard. I think once an easy conversion is available, maybe people won't be so quick to dump on this one, especially without really considering its finer points.

My only real problem now is finding out the release date and getting my game group together on that day to play it

I'd save the expertise dice for the +10% & +20% conventions in v2. I believe you are already limited to two expertise dice max anyway (though I may be misremembering something).

But it does seem fairly workable to convert, and fairly simple to do so as well.

Jaysin1414 said:

Everything's the same except the crunch. Monsters will be converted to the new edition anyways and there's many of the standards already done there. The background material in 2E was really what made it special and that all will be usable.

Jay H

Yeah, personally I wouldn't go for any formulas - take the source material, look at the stats and give it values that make sense in the new system. If there's a character, just remake that character in the new system using as-close-as-possible new careers etc