Role-playing rules and older handbooks?

[BirdofPrey]

I've been digging through what I have for AToW sourcebookwise and also recently passed through Battlecorps, and it has me wondering.  I have Handbook Major Periphery States, and it has some role-playing equipment, and a few creatures, and judging by the table of contents the other Handbooks have listed on Sarna, it seems all of the handbooks have similar things.  Unfortunately, a few of the handbooks were published prior to AToW.

Now I intend to grab the other Handbooks for the other goodies included, but I was wondering how the role-playing stuff from those integrate into AToW?
is all the equipment in them in another rule/sourcebook (like how MD gear got updated for AToW:C) or are they just going to be loose ends?

[HABeas2]

Most of the older Handbook equipment converts pretty directly to AToW. The Life Paths are defunct (AToW uses generic Life Modules instead, to avoid power creep), but the weapons and critters work about the same way, since the stats between MW3rd/CBTRPG and AToW use the same scales. The old MW3rd/CBTRPG damage values for critter attacks and weapons convert directly at 1:1 for AP, and 1D6:1 point for BD, so a critter that attacks for 2*4D6 in MW3rd becomes AP/BD: 2/4 in AToW, while a weapon that delivers 5*3D6 damage in MW3rd becomes 5/3 in AToW.

I should point out, by the way, that the equipment list in AToW provides the converted stats to ALL personal weapons and equipment featured in the MW3rd/CBTRPG, Combat Equipment, and the House Handbooks as of the time of its publication.

So, for the most part, having all the House Handbooks and the AToW core rules will cover about everything for you.

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[BirdofPrey]

Most of the older Handbook equipment converts pretty directly to AToW. The Life Paths are defunct (AToW uses generic Life Modules instead, to avoid power creep), but the weapons and critters work about the same way, since the stats between MW3rd/CBTRPG and AToW use the same scales. The old MW3rd/CBTRPG damage values for critter attacks and weapons convert directly at 1:1 for AP, and 1D6:1 point for BD, so a critter that attacks for 2*4D6 in MW3rd becomes AP/BD: 2/4 in AToW, while a weapon that delivers 5*3D6 damage in MW3rd becomes 5/3 in AToW.

Ah thanks Herb.  I figured life paths were defunt (the newer handbooks don't have any life modules in them do they?  Those having been moved to the era sourcebooks?)  Thanks for the conversion rules.

I should point out, by the way, that the equipment list in AToW provides the converted stats to ALL personal weapons and equipment featured in the MW3rd/CBTRPG, Combat Equipment, and the House Handbooks as of the time of its publication.

I figured as much, but wanted to double check real quick.

[HABeas2]

Ah thanks Herb.  I figured life paths were defunt (the newer handbooks don't have any life modules in them do they?  Those having been moved to the era sourcebooks?)  Thanks for the conversion rules.

I also should note: Critters DID get some extra changes between editions; The AToW Companion covers those as well.

As to Life Modules, once we started work on AToW, Life Modules were dropped from the Handbooks. Also dropped from Handbooks were new terrain/environment condition types, after TacOps went into production. I believe the cutoff for both happened around the time we released Periphery States.

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[BirdofPrey]

What sort of extra changes to Critters?

[HABeas2]

What sort of extra changes to Critters?

Most are subtle changes, I think. Close enough that you could translate them directly with what I already gave you. Some traits have changed (mostly simplifications), and others just went away. The Terror Trait is gone, for instance, and Toxic Immunity is now just Poison Resistance. For simplicity's sake also, most critters under AToW have a standard attack value, though a few has specialized attacks as well. This means that a critter that might have originally had a different bite and claw attack value now has a basic "AniMelee" attack value, but may also have Special Attack Traits like Poison or Ram to reflect their non-standard attack types. Attributes and Size Modifiers remain the same, though, as do speed, range, armor values, and the like.

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[BirdofPrey]

OOOKay then.