Creating
 

Has anyone had any luck entering advanced characters?
I have a few characters that were played to a pretty high Karma level (161) in 4th ed and then converted to 5th ed using the conversion rules that were published a while ago.
Since they are conversions I have no reference for the priorities that should be assigned.
I also seem to be capped at rank 6 for my skills.

Any ideas or advice?

-Erich

Build a normal starting character using the new rules, then lock the character in so that you can add the necessary amount of cash/karma.

Yep I've created a character with 450 karma :D . The problem with the conversion guide is it just assumes your doing it by hand so you transfer attributes over directly. Best advice I can give is just play around with the priorities and advancement to get as close as you can to your character. Remember you have a special tab that will let you adjust things if you can't do it by the current rules e.g. raising an attribute without paying karma. You can always post a character and get feedback on creating it using heroloab. Not sure if you can do that here but I'm sure there are others you could.

As for capped at 6 I assume this is during the initial creation? If so skills can't be raised above 6 (along with other rules e.g. only 1 attribute at maximum or not being able to start as an initiate). When you've made your base character you need to go to the advancement tab and click the lock button which will lock out all the character creation choices and open up the advancement tab (you can toggle back and forth). In advancement you select various options e.g. raise skill, raise attribute, shoot your family etc and it spends the karma and updates your character. For example if you start off with sorcery 6, after you've unlocked advancement you can buy sorcery 7 or spellcasting 7, then 8, then 9 and so on.

I think the biggest problem I am going to have is with the groups and free magic skills on one of my characters.
He has 2 groups at 7, and none of the new magic skills ( alchemy, enchanting, etc.).
I can just go ahead and raise the sixes to sevens after I lock the character, but I also don't want the character to be better just because I had to build him (basically) from scratch. I don't think my GM would be happy with me :).
I'll look at the special tab ( I forgot about that being there) and see if it also allows reductions.
Thanks for the advice guys.

As I recall the conversion said you can buy ranks or trade them from another skill. So maybe drop the groups to 6 (1 dice) and use the 6 new points on a skill you want? Alternatively adjustment lets you raise a skill and you can always give yourself free karma and use that to buy the groups to 7.

Also, if you're certain of the way you converted the character, you could build him as an NPC, THEN lock for advancement.

At least, you could do that in SR4/Pathfinder/WoD/Etc...