im a third edition player/gm, and one of my friends is a 4th edition player/gm.
he was wanting to run a campaign in which the players in his campaign went against the veterans of mine.

problems with the ware differences and damage differences aswell as skill caps and stat caps are what was concerning me.

how would any of you try it ?or would you not cross that dangerous line?

The two systems do not really directly compare. SR is not designed for player on player combat. I suggest moving your contest to a miniatures game of some sort whose system is designed for such a competition.

One or other group needs to convert characters, which means a disadvantage due to familiarity with system. You could have both groups convert characters and have a remote game going through the refs for all their actions against one another.

This kinda thing tends to work better for ROLEplayers than ROLLplayers but the rules are still going to bite. The systems just don't flow together here.

ive had no problems running pvp in sr3, ive run capaigns side by side with the combining against each other later on.

but i figured atleast someone here would have some ideas.

main issues is that my players tend to get high stats thats just not possible in forth and the same with skills.
another issue is the diffences in a few adept powers and cyber/bioware.

in pvp games you have to rely on the rules to stave of some of the hard feeling of getting a PC geek. It does not have to be nice but it does need to be 'fair'.

I just cannot see how this can be acheived cross edition with the gap between 3 and 4. PC interaction is easy, inter edition combat equals paradox and arguements.

You can convert one way or another but that still leaves one side on home turf, so to speak.

hi hi

Just a couple of observations I made while converting characters from 3rd to 4th in the past.

• 4 is the new 6 (concerning skills and attribute ratings)
• Anyone who relies on a high combat pool needs to come up with a new concept

A 4e stat is equivalent of 2/3 of a 3e stat.

the other gm was just saying keep the stats and skills the same for the most part. his explanation was that living through the i-jin incident has made them super(meta)human. we were not going to actually run the game in both editions. just had a hard time converting characters from one system to another with out butchering them beyond recognition.

You know your groups. As an outsider I would have to bet on arguements ahead without an edition rule legal characters going at it hammer and tongs.

We tried a couple conversions from SR3 to 4, but I think the best was to have the players run 4e chargen for their characters and then spending earned karma and cash as desired. And 4e is easier to grasp quickly than 3rd.

that can be useful.

I believe that is the "recommended" way to convert characters from 3rd to 4th. The direct conversion rules tend to create characters not in the "spirit" of the original.

my team understood 3rd faster than 4th. and chargen went much quicker and smoother.

my newest player picked the system up by sitting in one game and finished her character in about 30 minutes.of course i also have a player that takes days to make a basic character and still doesnt get the rules . times like these i want to run the rules light diceles system of maelstrom from hubris games.

There is a 3rd to 4th ed conversion PDF on Catalysts site, if i recall correctly.

My own suggestion would be to run the scenario twice. First, using 4th ed with the 3rd ed characters converted, then again using 3rd ed with the 4th ed characters converted back to 3rd.

Or course, I suspect the "native" characters will win, in each case.

Convert them both into SR1 and make them use the Matrix. Muhahaha.

I would suggest a different approach: The veterans get to play important NPC adversaries for the "current" SR4 PCs. Conversion with an added "add what you deem appropiate and believable" bonus.
There just has to be a common understanding that this encounter is for the benefit of the SR4 campaign, true to the wording of the opening post. The SR3 veterans are there to go down in style, nothing more. It might create some memorable moments.

thks for your insight, you are all appreciated.

The biggest issue I can see here is that SR is not made for character-vs-character violence. A street sam from either side will do well against one another, but one group's hacker will get squished by the other group's mage, or the mage will get gunned down by the rigger's drones, etc. The players get to choose, meta-game, who they attack - unlike when NPC's are attacking in-character, aiming at the more aggressive and obvious combat monsters.

My suggestion to you is that you pit the two teams against each other in an indirect conflict. Give them an objective - the first group to the helicopters wins, the other group gets boned as LoneStar catches up with them - or give them similar runs and see who can do it better, faster, more quietly, etc.

If it's down to a fight, it won't be "last group standing" - it would be "last cybersam standing", with the less combatty characters on both teams dead and bled out before, finally, one of the combat monsters comes out on top.

you have an idea for the campaign yet?
and what kind of characters are going to be present?
do you know if you want to start out with the older, more experienced runners in 3rd ed?
or are you planning to really only have the old farts along as powerfull NPCs?

if you can get it, i advise you on reading the book THE WORLD OF SHADOWRUN, i think there's examples of all 4 editions at least for combat . .
so you could compare 3rd ed and 4th ed combat there . .

most likely the third edition characters will be just used as powerful opposition against the forth edition characters . i wrote my game but he still cant get a group together and ive postponed my group until two of my players read some of the material, mainly the fluff so they understand the world better. as for the book,where could i order a copy?