When converting stuff from Pathfinder to Starfinder, I know I should avoid bonuses to AC and to attack rolls, but this isnt all is it? Are there any other things to which I should avoid giving bonuses to?
If you're talking about stuff for PC's, I'd say to be careful about Energy Resistance. High ER (even ER5 at low levels) can make a character effectively immune to a lot of attacks. This is especially true if you're going to be running APs or society scenarios and don't feel like re-writing half the monsters. A normal space goblin, for example can only damage a ER5 Fire PC with a crit from range. That makes them a lot less dangerous to a PC that starts with that ER. A lot of the monsters are that way.
Personally, I'd also avoid converting any of the classes that use memorization style spellcasting, as those are the ones that tend to be the most brokenly overpowered at mid-high level. While I love playing these classes, I can't make an honest evaluation of them that doesn't involve them breaking the game in some way.
For that matter, if you do go the route of converting any 9th level caster, you're going to have to explicitly look at every spell you allow them to have, adjusting damage and effects so that it matches similar character level spells or items from the existing SF lists. Personally, I think that it's possible to do for classes like Sorcerer and Oracle without them being broken, but it's a lot of work.
Ability boosts work differently (basically, you're stuck with 3 in this game), but I don't know yet how unbalanced changing that would be if you're converting.
The only other thing I can think of is action economy type stuff, which changed drastically.
Yeah, it is for PCs.
Ye, I see what you mean about ER.
Regarding spellcasters, I was thinking of converting the Spheres of Power system to SF. Making such a conversion is part of the reason Im asking this in the first place. Since Drop Dead Studios are likely to convert the system anyway in the future, maybe I shouldnt bother... but I want to be able to play soon.
And whta do you mean by ability boosts?
I'm not sure what Spheres of Power is. Assuming it's another game (sounds like Mage), I'd personally wait to see if the company that makes it does one. But, that's mostly because I'm lazy and have a very good idea how hard game development actually is.
As for ability boosts. Right now, there is only one way to boost your ability scores beyond the "natural" ones from character level. That's the "Personal Upgrade" Mk1-3. With that, you're explicitly limited to boosting one stat by +6, one by +4, and one by +2, and they're only available as level 14, 7, and 3 items, respectively.
I'm assuming that the existence of that item and their item level was taken into account when the designers made various monsters/APs. If you convert any of the spells/feats/items from PF that could increase them further, you're likely to impact the difficulty of those encounters, possibly severely. Especially if everyone ends up running around with +6 enhancement bonuses to all six attributes and doubly especially if they can get that in addition to the ones from the personal upgrade.
I'd therefore recommend just not porting over any of those spells/items from PF (or doing so only with extreme caution).
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So I have spent a lot of time in the past couple months studying the books and I wrote down some guidelines I put on my website. Disclaimer! I could be completely off on all of these. But this is just what I use and it has been working.
On p. 142 on the Alien Archive it states vision should be a free bonus. BUT it should tie into the race. So what I have done is referenced the creature type grafts on p.132. For Example: Outsiders get Darkvision 60ft. while Shirren types would get blind sense.
What Abilities to give and how many to give? I used these links below for reference. They are pathfinder stats but I feel “most” transfer over well.
example races
example traits
From what I have come up with, most abilities cost 2RP. Unless it is something like flight or something weaker. Like a 0lvl spell should be like 1 RP(depends). The key is to compare A LOT!
Vision (0 RP).
+2 to skills count as 2 RP.
If they have a penalty -2 RP.
If the race has 4HP that counts as the standard (0 RP). If they have 2HP (-2 RP). If they have 6HP (+2 RP).
I believe most races hover around 8 RP average.
EXAMPLES
Android: +constructed (3 RP), +2 Skill (2 RP), upgrade slot (2 RP)
Dragonkin: HP6 (2 RP), +2 saves (2 RP), Flight (4 RP) Partner bond (1 RP), Breath weapon (2 RP)
Human: Bonus feat (4 RP) Skills (4 RP).
Ryphorians: Resistances (2 RP), +2 Skill (2 RP), Bonus feat (4 RP)
Vesk: HP6 (2 RP), natural weapon (2 RP), Bonus AC (2 RP), +2 resist (2 RP)
Ysoki: HP2 (-2 RP), cheek pouches (2 RP), Moxie (2 RP), +2 Skills (6 RP)
Total average for all these is 8 RP.
For example here is a Tiefling I homebrew for my wife in my game.
Ability Score Racial Traits: Tieflings are quick in body and mind, but are inherently strange and unnerving. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Charisma.
Hit Points: 4
Type: Tieflings are outsiders with the native subtype.
Size: Tieflings are Medium creatures.
Speed: Tieflings have a base speed of 30 feet.
Darkvision: Tieflings can see perfectly in the dark for up to 60 feet.
Languages: Tieflings begin play speaking Common and either Abyssal or Infernal.
Skilled: Tieflings gain a +2 racial bonus on Bluff and Stealth checks. (4 RP)
Fiendish Resistance: Tieflings have a natural resistance to certain energies: cold resistance 2, electricity resistance 2, and fire resistance 2. (3 RP) (This is only slightly better than damage resist +5 and only slightly better than Ryphorians +2/+2.)
Prehensile Tail: Tieflings have long flexible tails that can be used to carry items. While they cannot wield weapons with their tails, they can use them to retrieve small, stowed objects carried on their persons as a free action. (2 RP)
Alternate Racial Traits:
Fiendish Wings: A Tiefling may gain bat-like wings and gain a flight speed of 30 feet with average maneuverability. Until a Tiefling is 5th level, they must end their movement on the ground at the end of each turn or fall. Gaining wings replace prehensile tail and +2 in stealth checks. (4 RP)
Total RP: 9
I also homebrewed the Shifters from Eberron for my campaign. They are kind of like Aisha Clan-Clan from Outlaw Star with a hint of Predator race. They have already appeared once but the party ran from them.
I see, thank you you two, this was very helpful!!
Pithica Spheres of Power is a 3pp system for Pathfinder that can be used alongside or (preferably) instead of vancian magic. It's a sort of build-your-own-spell sort of thing. Im just giving some context, no need to look at it if you dont want to. This has been help enough, thank you!!
That sounds a lot like how magic worked in Mage: The Ascension, but looking at the wiki for SoP, it's more spheres than Mage had. That's significantly different enough that I'd definitely wait on them to update it, but that's me. The developers probably spent hundreds (if not 1000s) of man hours creating that system, it's probably going to take a significant portion of that to convert it, if you want to preserve game balance.
Farlanghn, I really like that write up for Tieflings. It's much better than the one in Starfarer's Companion. I like it so much that I'm stealing it. I also dug up the shifter writeup you mentioned in another tab. I'ma probably going to steal that too. :)
On p. 142 on the Alien Archive it states vision should be a free bonus. BUT it should tie into the race. So what I have done is referenced the creature type grafts on p.132. For Example: Outsiders get Darkvision 60ft. while Shirren types would get blind sense.
Bear in mind, there's a difference in power level in giving an ability to an NPC vs a PC. The classic example from 3.0 was dragon senses. Dragons get an excellent suite of vision abilities right from wyrmling, but as good as they are they don't really make dragons harder to fight. They DO add up to a substantial edge when playing such a creature.
Or, for another example, Elf racial weapons don't make an elf npc substantially more of a challenge than a dwarf. They do, however, open up a few options as a PC and is worth at least a little racial build points.
I don't really feel vision and weapon proficiencies are a great comparison. Darkvision can be bought for $200 and weapons cost a feat to be proficient in.
Comparing the 2 races;
Dwarf: 2HP (2 RP), Steady (2 RP), Stonecunning (2 RP), Traditional Enemies (2 RP) Weapon (2 RP)
Elf: Saves (2 RP), Elven Magic (2 RP), Keen Senses (2 RP)
Average: 8
But of course that is just me and how I tried to determine ways to make races. It's a big galaxy out there and a small Alien Archive. If you change it for your game that's cool.