The one thing that always sucks about a new edition of any RPG is being stuck with the basics for a long time when you were use to having all the expanded and indepth stuff (Ex. none of the good stuff from Street Magic, Unwired, Runners Companion, etc, will be available for a long while until they decide to print new books.) It'd be nice if they had some sort of conversion guide for using your 4th edition stuff with the new 5th edition core book until they release the rest of the new material.

Anyone know if they've talked or addressed the issue of conversion guides or backwards compatibility?

I am pretty sure about SR4 stuff beeing compatible with SR5, and there will be an conversion guide released together with the pdf. But don´t ask me where i read it.

There will be conversion rules for characters. There will be no complete backward compatibility, as several things added (Limits, Accuracy in Weapons, massive changes in Matrix gear) will change game balance significantly. Also, Cyber/Bio implantation rules have changed, and Cyber/Bio is more expensive, but many systems only enhance Limits, so probably aren't very useful anymore (what good is a Limit of 12 if you only have a pool of 10). Do not assume Characters will translate easily.

I'm more worried about Matrix based characters since reading the Character Template for a Technomancer in one of the rules previews, they've overhauled the Matrix quite a bit.

Complex Forms don't even have ratings anymore and they seem to have included all new Skills for the Matrix so I'm a bit concerned that somethings may be totally incompatible.

I have read on several sites (unfortunately they´re all in german) that all contents of SR4 will be compatible to SR5.

But hell knows where they have their information from.

The Matrix is probably completely different. But maybe you should wait for the PDF to come out. I doubt any Matrix gear will be compatible though. You'll have to houserule until advanced rules come out, I guess. Sucks, but so is life. Or you wait with the transition until all advanced books are out. Then, you could also see what doesn't fit your table's game style, if anything, and houserule, if necessary, from the get-go.


Which sites, if I may ask?

It's kind of bizarre how Catalyst has been going on and on with one of their major selling points for 5th Edition being how they've "streamlined and simplified the Matrix rules" yet 5 PDF previews released and so far not a damn thing about the Matrix.

One is still in the pipeline, for all I know.