WP and phpBB

Before I get brutally flamed for “not searching first”, let me say that I did do an extensive search and read many many posts, but unfortunately I didn’t seem to get a definitive answer from anyone. 90% of the threads I read were just people saying, “do a search first, dummy!” and the rest were not really clear answers.

I have the WP set up and I actually successfully installed a phpBB. My questions is, first… how do I link the two so they use the same user database (you saw that coming, right), but better yet… I have no emotional attachment to the phpBB. I haven’t even gotten around to configuring it or anything. Instead of working on getting it linked to my wordpress would you instead recommend just downloading some kind of “forum plugin” for WP that has the same great features? Honestly this is my first attempt ever setting up a Forum and I just want to make sure the final product is solid.