Conversion help, Need assistance converting an SR2 adventure to SR4 Options

[HMHVV Hunter]

Alright everyone, I could use a bit of help here on a little home project of mine.

I'm planning to get an SR group together locally and run the adventure Dark Angel for them, except set in the 2070s (I like SR continuity, and I think I can run this without losing too much). However, this means converting things to SR4 stats from SR2, and it's there that I need a bit of help.

The things I'm most concerned about is:

-Stats - converting attributes and skills. I think for most things it'll be an easy one-for-one conversion (since, for example, a 3 in Body means the same thing in SR2 and 4), but what about the divided attributes (like Quickness being split into agility and reaction)?
-Target numbers - the target numbers are listed for certain tasks. What should those numbers translate to in terms of successes?
-The Matrix - how do I resolve that with the new Wireless Matrix of 2070?

If I think of any more questions I'll post them, but some suggestions for these would be greatly appreciated.

[Bira]

My suggestion is to look at the SR2 stats, understand the idea behind them, and figure out SR4 stats starting from that idea. For NPC stats, figure out what the purpose of that character is within the adventure. It it an expendable grunt? The corebook has several examples of those. Is it a gun-bunny, or a mage? Make one up with SR4 rules.

For Matrix hosts, figure out how though the host is intended to be, and make up a node of equivalent difficulty using SR4 rules. Your Matrix runs are likely to be much shorter under SR4, but that's to be expected.

[Wesley Street]

Unfortunately there's no official or unofficial 1:1 conversion of older materials to SR4 that actually works. But that said, I've converted many SR1 adventures to SR4 and it isn't terribly difficult if you understand the core mechanics.

So my answer is: study! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[sinthalix]

I ran this one a couple of months ago as an SR4 for my group.

- Stats: I converted all the attributes using the SR3 to SR4 conversion rules. I made most of the skills into skill groups and kept the same rating (since that's what SR2 skills essentially were).
- Target numbers: I either converted them into dice pool modifiers or threshholds, depending on the test required. This is easiest to do on the fly to keep the story moving.
- Matrix: Like Bira said, it's easier making the nodes using SR4 rules.

Hope this helps...my group had a lot of fun with this adventure!

[HMHVV Hunter]

I ran this one a couple of months ago as an SR4 for my group.

- Stats: I converted all the attributes using the SR3 to SR4 conversion rules. I made most of the skills into skill groups and kept the same rating (since that's what SR2 skills essentially were).
- Target numbers: I either converted them into dice pool modifiers or threshholds, depending on the test required. This is easiest to do on the fly to keep the story moving.
- Matrix: Like Bira said, it's easier making the nodes using SR4 rules.

Hope this helps...my group had a lot of fun with this adventure!

What did you do for target number-to-successes conversion? Was there a formula (like a 2 success threshold if the TN is 6 or something like that)?

[sinthalix]

If I remember right, that's what I did with a lot of them...each TN above 4 was a threshold...just like your example.

When it came to the negotiations, I made the TN modifiers into dice pool modifiers.

For legwork and such, I used 1 success = 4 hits, 2 successes = 8 hits.

Most of the time I just winged it to help move the story along. If they were having too hard a time, I dropped the thresholds and if they were starting to walk through it easily, I raised them.

Overall, using the above basic guidelines, it challenged them without destroying them.

[HMHVV Hunter]

I can't find the SR3 to SR4 conversion rules in the core book. Are they in another book?

[sinthalix]

Here ya go!

http://www.shadowrun4.com/resources/sr4/sr3_to_sr4.pdf