is there a way that without bridging them together i can get coppermine and phpbb3 to share the same login details. sorry if this is a dumb question!!!! ;) ;) ;)
Bridging is the easiest way to do this, else you'll have to code something yourself.
will it matter if i use the same sql data base for both progarmes
No, doesn't matter. In fact it's even recommended to keep them both in the same db. However, bridging to phpbb3 goes unsupported here. Read up the many threads that deal with this.