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The players and GMs who don't want to have knock-down battles within their group because that guy insists that an official conversion guide = Paizo says I can play it.
I think you might be attaching too much importance to the power of arguing until the cows come home. Outside of Society play, a GM can always veto what they're not comfortable with, no matter what, and an argumentative player looking for ammunition will already have found it in the actual Society example listed in the OP. I also just find the general notion of not doing something useful just because some random person might make a fuss out of it so ridiculous as to hardly be worth considering.
The GMs who want to decide for themselves how to adjudicate these issues, without a competing Paizo version.
"How dare Paizo contradict my broken homebrew with official rules" does not come across to me as a terribly convincing argument.
So I understand you want a 'how to', but recognize that a canon 'how to' implies (to some people, at least) a canon 'can do' and a 'do this way.' It's very difficult to send the first message without sending the other two.
It may surprise you to know that clear, consistent rules on how to play a game are in fact the very reason why most of us here get to enjoy Pathfinder, and Starfinder too for that matter. If people want to do things their way at their table, they are free to do so and would remain free to do so even with a conversion guide running around, but those of us wanting a balanced cross-play experience would at least have a solid reference to work with. I really don't see how anyone can credibly argue for less clarity on balance in 2e, out of all possible TTRPG systems.
No not at all, and you're denigrating the critics of your idea. A conversion guide codifies game-to-game transfers. It's a perfectly understandable and reasonable position for a GM to say "I'd rather do that myself, thanks, and I don't want Paizo to tell me how to do it."
I would say that it is the people talking down to everyone else for supposedly not reading Starfinder's GM Core or playing the game who are doing the denigrating here, but I'll fully admit that I'm not terribly impressed by those kinds of posts either and see no reason to pretend otherwise. Similarly, I don't find this false dichotomy very sensible either, because Paizo posting an official conversion guide doesn't mean they're going to break into your house and force you at staff-point to port content across games their way. A GM wanting to do things their way will always have the option to do so, guide or no guide, so this isn't going to stifle their options unless they're sticklers for following the rules, in which case they'd probably be the kind of GM who would want clear official rules in the first place.
I don't think anyone on this fora has disagreed with the idea of a community guide...or even multiple guides.
I think this is one of the cases where it is genuinely appropriate to recommend reading a bit more on the subject matter, because several people argued against Paizo creating a conversion guide on this very thread, often with the claim that it is unnecessary and covered already in a rulebook, and sometimes with a claim similar to the one you've made of how this could somehow allow litigious players to override their own GMs. It is very much a subject of dispute.
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Why I don't think a Paizo brand conversion guide is a good idea:
1. Someone has to make it. It would be a release for one of the two systems in a year where I would much rather see something else. Because it crosses over both, it might even require developer labor from both pools.
2. Both Starfinder and Pathfinder grow frequently with new content. The guide goes out of date before it even gets printed and then requires constant up dating. The community has proven itself better at this than Paizo at every possible opportunity.
3. Unless PathStar or StarPath becomes a product that is getting its own APs and adventures regularly enough to need more content than already exists to do the occasional one off combination of games, it is a dead end of development time. Any special considerations that need to be given to a specific AP or adventure can just focus on the content that product will use in the context it is going to be used and not have to cover every possible use case.
4.Or maybe 3.5. This "consider on a case by case basis" is the better way of introducing cross-game content, and is how GMs should do it regardless of what "official" material says. Will an ancestry that gets flying at level 1 really (or always) disrupt a PF2 campaign? No, not always. If the first 5 levels are pretty tight dungeons or spaces where the climb DCs to get anywhere a flier could get are 15 or lower, and the character is a melee character, AND no one else in the party is making PF2 choices that involve spending multiple feats to gain flight, and everyone is fine with it because it creates some narrative that the table likes, then it doesn't really matter, just as the GM could already decide to essentially give level 1 flight away to a PF2 flying ancestry already, and there is guidance in PF2 about how to do that. On a case by case basis, there is no "broken" content to worry about crossing from game to game except for stuff the GM is just not going to support.
5. The best advice about all of this stuff is going to come from tables that use the content in play this way. I doubt that is going to be happening internally at Paizo nearly as often as it will outside of Paizo, so a community built repository of advice is going quickly end up superior to anything Paizo could hope to publish (as well as 2, be kept up to date better).
6. Paizo gave us the big picture stuff/game expectation stuff to consider already, and that is enough to give GMs a very solid start on allowing cross game content. The next best place for official Paizo ideas to be introduced is in specific adventures. Like if there is an AP where a starfinder class could work out well, include that in the player's guide to the AP. Then, if it is not the best advice/doesn't work out as intended, then they can do better next time. If they try to give specific conversion advice out of no where in an official rule book, and it fails to meet player expectation, they might be in a position where there is a lot of errata to do to fix it. That might seem ideal to players who want offical, perfect conversion notes for everything in both games, but it is a lot of needless work and potentially flopping a major rule book, instead of testing some ideas out in content that is given out for free.
7. The conversion guide is something that is pretty much all mechanics with no unique story to tell with (that wouldn't be tied to a specific adventure). Is it just going to reuse all art from PF2 and SF2 sources as well? probably. There is no sellable product here as the content would all be available for free on Archives of Nethys.
Summary: A purely mechanical conversion guide between PF2 and SF2 is introducing no actual new content mechanically or narratively into either game space. Everything it would offer is already there for GMs and players to talk over and use for themselves. The community will do this better than Paizo, more quickly and keep it better up to date.
Edit: It would be better for paizo to do this piece meal in specific APs and Adventures so they can put their creative spin on to it and give folks new content to play with.
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That might as well be the official tagline of this forum.I think you might be attaching too much importance to the power of arguing until the cows come home.
Yeah, I try to disengage from people that get into a debate about a debate about a debate, though I'm human like anyone else. If you personally don't see the value in a conversion guide, fine, but I don't think much can be usefully said to convince someone else to stop wanting it. "But it would take effort" applies to literally every single thing Paizo has ever put out and I just don't think it's worth anyone's energy to argue about whether someone at Paizo has the energy to put out a conversion guide.
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I’m weirded out by the concept that an official guide would lead to people arguing that because Paizo says they can do something, then they…can. Unless I’m mistaken, isn’t that the entire point of all the Rule…books?
Why would an Official Paizonian Conversion guide giving…guidance…be any more contentious or argument forming than an Official Paizonian Rulebook with…rules? Is there a function of guidance that is less (or more?) compelling to be argumentagious*?
And if it *is* “guidance” that is the problem, then call it a Conversion Rules document. I see a lot of narrative around the rules being mere suggestions anyway, and that DM/GM/Referees can chop and change the system to suit their (and their players’) style. Which people already do.
However it seems that what (some) people are asking for is that the devs, who ostensibly should be at the top of their game and understand the rules interactions, take a look at a bunch of issues, and make some judgments. Sure the community *can* make and has created a cavalcade of supporting material, guides, homebrew etc. But for a system that claims 100% compatibility, a professionally produced guide on how the “balance points” differ, by the company that made the 100% compatibility claim feels warranted to ensure a professionally produced…product.
(And no, slapping Rarity tags to “balance” an option is not a path we want to go down again.)
*argumentagious: whereby arguments are contagious; see also: politics, religion and, equally, farts.
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Yeah, I try to disengage from people that get into a debate about a debate about a debate, though I'm human like anyone else. If you personally don't see the value in a conversion guide, fine, but I don't think much can be usefully said to convince someone else to stop wanting it. "But it would take effort" applies to literally every single thing Paizo has ever put out and I just don't think it's worth anyone's energy to argue about whether someone at Paizo has the energy to put out a conversion guide.That might as well be the official tagline of this forum.I think you might be attaching too much importance to the power of arguing until the cows come home.
Yes, I have to agree. I see this a lot from people that just want to shut down calls for solutions to problems they don’t think are true problems, and decide on Paizo’s behalf where the budgetary constraints are.
I must be fair, and say equally, I never condone a reduction to base capital as a successful argument for anything. Either you make and do business with the best of intentions and righteous conduct; or you cry foul that the munny ran out. That latter option is *not* ethical. If you can’t make a good game (or a game well), or a free game, don’t make a game. Don’t forget, it’s a game of enjoyment, fun and fulfillment. If the bean counters stop you, as Jordan Peel said: Get Out.
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Why I don't think a Paizo brand conversion guide is a good idea:
1. Someone has to make it.
Plenty of others have already rightfully criticized this for being the non-argument that it is, but just to put it into perspective: I took the liberty of tallying the amount of text you've committed to this thread, Unicore, and got a word count of 2768. That's about five pages' worth of text in an A4 document using a standard font size, and about as much text as it took Paizo to write the section on archaic adventures. If one or more Paizo employees sat down to write a conversion guide using the internal references they doubtless have on hand, it would likely not take much more effort than what you dedicated to arguing on this thread, and so entirely for free. Something also tells me that if Paizo released such a guide, its contribution to our community would be infinitely more positive too.
I think community guides are likely a better solution. They can go into more depth than Paizo is likely to go (specific issues with each class, for instance), and players from crossover games are likely to have playtested combos Paizo hasn't thought of. And they'll arrive years before a publication.
I don't think we're necessarily talking about the same thing here. I'm not suggesting Paizo write a Gortle-style in-depth guide for every class discussing which options are best to take, I'm advocating for a reference sheet that is easy to pick up and read, outlines the fundamental differences between the two games, and gives clear, straightforward indications for how to convert certain bits of content from one edition to the other. For instance, how to break down a flying ancestry's fly Speed in Pathfinder with clearly-defined milestones, or a formula for reducing resistance or Hardness on Pathfinder options and monsters to avoid making creatures nigh-invincible in Starfinder. One could even establish a difference between "must-have" and "nice-to-have" conversions here, where must-haves avoid breaking certain scenarios like in OP's example, and nice-to-haves equalize options that are balanced somewhat differently across both games, but are unlikely to break anything if left untouched.
Pathfinder and Starfinder are certainly different games that run on different assumptions, but the differences in my opinion are not actually all that large and stem only from a few key factors: if Paizo were to list these differences explicitly, and give straightforward conversions for each in the way they probably already used for their internal balancing, it would be unlikely to take up all that much space. I also don't think there needs to be much concern over how such a document would evolve over time, because errata exists and has been used prolifically to update content post-remaster: if the addition of a new sourcebook like the upcoming tech rulebook adds extra considerations, that's fine, and that can just be added in as the expansion releases.
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Bulk takes the problem of "you have add up a bunch of numbers and the total can get to 3 digits" and replaces it with "you have to add up a bunch of numbers except the decimals don't work like you expect, the numbers are extremely arbitrary and hard to estimate on the fly, and the whole system becomes extremely confusing once large or tiny PCs are involved."Rhetorical question: How do decimals not "work like you expect"? They round down, just like everything other time you end up with decimals in Pathfinder.
The rules say this:
If they're carrying a total amount of Bulk that exceeds 5 plus their Strength modifier, they are encumbered.
If you have 0 STR for convenience, that means you're encumbered if you exceed 5 bulk. Aka > 5.
5 bulk 1 light (aka 5.1) is greater than 5, but you're not encumbered at that. That's also true of 5 bulk 9 light (aka 5.9). You're not actually encumbered until 6 bulk. The book says "> 5" but what it actually implements is ">= 6".
So you just ignore all the decimals/fractions entirely as if they don't exist, and it makes the math wonky because you still track it as you need to know if getting another dagger suddenly makes you encumbered, but the other 9 daggers you already have don't count at all until the 10th one shows up.
Supposedly this is simpler, but I really don't find it such. And that's before getting into problems of estimating bulk for cases that don't have it specified.
Non-rhetorical question: How does it get confusing with large and tiny creatures? (I have never had any large or tiny PCs in my games).
The bulk value of items changes with those creatures. If a small/medium creature finds a bunch of medium size loot (the standard case), a longbow is 2 bulk, a longsword is 1 bulk, and a shortsword is L bulk. That means that bulk wise, 1 longbow = 2 longswords = 20 shortswords.
Take those exact same items and put them on a large PC like a Centaur instead. Large creatures treat 1 bulk items as L and L items as negligible, while other items are unchanged... so suddenly 1 Longbow = 20 Longswords = Indeterminate Shortswords (the rules don't specify at this point and the GM has to impose a limit).
If you find large versions of those items instead then they're sized with large as the base, so the math goes back to normal when its on a large creature. But on a medium creature, 1 large longbow is 4 bulk, 2 large longswords is 4 bulk, and 4 large shortswords is 4 bulk. Shortswords increase in bulk far more than the other two, as opposed to a straightforward "the large version is double the medium version", we get "the large version is double the medium version, except for L items where it's ten times the medium version".
Tiny does this in reverse, where you halve it, except if it goes below 1 bulk then it becomes 1L so instead of half it's 1/10th. Tiny creatures also don't treat anything as negligible also have half the encumbrance limit, so I find actually using one with significant gear was really awkward and back when I had to do it, tools didn't handle this case well (that last part may have improved since then).
But playing a tiny PC who wants to wear armor and use weapons with half the encumbrance limit was really fiddly and I ended up just handwaving it away entirely for that PC.
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As someone who regularly homebrews Pathfinder, just do what the rest of us do. Declare "I'm gonna deviate from this rule and make a home rule."
Exactly this. I don't see why we're wringing our hands over not being able to do things the way we want when players have been house ruling and homebrewing off of the official rules since long before this edition was even invented. Whether Paizo gives us multiple options to follow or just one, the power will always be in the hands of the GMs to adjust, rebalance, and veto as they see fit.
Plurality of options is also why a conversion guide would be able to sit just fine alongside whatever exists already in Starfinder's GM Core: if some conversion advice already exists in the latter, that's fine, and if it doesn't (and there really isn't as much guidance there as some people are pretending there is), then one such guide would only benefit us all the more. If that guide gives us multiple ways to tackle the same disparity, that's great, and if it just gives us one possible solution, that's still better than nothing.
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What I don't get is why some people are still desperately insisting that we shouldn't have a conversion guide, when there is clearly demand for it in this very thread alone. Like, if Paizo does actually go and release one, how does this hurt you? The people loudly professing that it's not needed can just pretend it doesn't exist, while the rest of us who want to actually try porting over content from one game to the other without breaking our campaign in half can do so with the proper tools.
Based from what I read in SF2e GMC, I don't think that I need a full detailed conversion document once that most general conversion guidelines are already there.
That said, I'm not against that Paizo create a more detailed conversion guide. But don't expect that I actively defend its creation because I simply don't need one.
I'm also against those arguments that say “but if Paizo creates a full conversion document this implies that I as GM need to accept it” and that's absurd. You as GM would accept or not whatever you want you to think that is useful for your games. This is just an excuse for weak GMs that have fear to face their players explaining that some options are banned and why.
So in the end. IMO there's both no excuse to not have a conversion document (exception to allow Paizo to same some money/avoid occupy an designer with this) but also there's also no need because I believe that most GMs already have enough tools to deal with cross content without any notable problem.
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Like it's entirely possible that "the PCs can fly at low levels" is not going to matter at all in a given Pathfinder game- perhaps the entirety of the first 9 levels or so is going to take place indoors where the ceilings don't get very high. The GM of the specific game is the person who has insight on whether this is going to be the case so leaving "how you should adjudicate flying ancestries" to the GM is really the only way to handle deviating from the printed rules.
It's not totally different from how we handle amphibious ancestries- in an adventure that requires a lot of getting wet, it's potentially a huge advantage to be able to breathe under the water without help. In a campaign set in the mountains it's not going to come up much. It's just that the relative frequency of "aquatic" adventures compared to "ones where flight is a huge advantage" is much lower so we don't benefit from creating a cost to being aquatic like we do for flying.
Like it's entirely possible that "the PCs can fly at low levels" is not going to matter at all in a given Pathfinder game- perhaps the entirety of the first 9 levels or so is going to take place indoors where the ceilings don't get very high.
This is wishful thinking, and very much not how balance works. If your game is only balanced in a perfect, frictionless vacuum where everything happens exactly as you want it to, and falls apart the moment those conditions are not met, then your game is not balanced. 2e aims for balance across both its flagship games, and so should ensure that it doesn’t break unless you wall the party under 10-foot-high ceilings for nearly a whole campaign, or apply similarly excessive contrivances.
And to add, if it's balanced for a dragonkin to have a 20-foot fly speed, it's balanced for Awakened Flying Animals, Sprites, and Strix having level 1 full flight.
The case falls apart when the player with one of these ancestries starts asking why they aren't getting the full fly unlock of at least 20 feet.
You simply can't justify granting an unedited dragonkin in Pathfinder without granting the appropriate buffs to these ancestries, or for additional example full flight at level 5 for dragonbloods.
Well as a GM, you very easily can, because it only matters if you have players playing ancestries that don’t align that way, or you have players who feel such a thing would be unfair, in which case you just don’t let a player play a SF dragonkin or you modify it in a way that feels fair to the table.
Don’t we already have this? There already is guidance in howl of the wild for having flying PCs from level 1 and it would be trivially easy to reverse that by just using the exact same feats for an awakened animal if you wanted to take that flight away from an existing ancestry. But either way, there are like 3 different ways a GM could handle a player asking for access to a SF2 flying ancestry so it really is going to boil down to what the GM and player wants more than it needing to work one specific way.
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The guidance I would want answered is how to implement something like Barathu, for example, in a game where I would not grant unlimited level 1 flight to one of the Pathfinder Ancestries that comes with wings (Sprites, Strix, certain Awakened Animals).
Like it's easy enough to just add the three flight feats to the dragonkin's set of ancestry feats. But Barathu have a 5' move without flying.
To give a homebrew example, my plan for Barathu was giving them a land speed of 20 feet with the Hover trait. Which would let them ignore difficult terrain and any floor-based hazards.
Then letting them earn their flight with feats.
Though seeing default fly speeds of 20 feet has been giving me cause to reevaluate my general fly speed arrangement. My next pass of fly rules is probably gonna accomodate clumsy fliers (Shirren and Tengu), Normal Fliers (Automatons, Barathu, Dragonblood, Dragonkin, Nephilim, Geniekin) and Swift Fliers (Strix, Flying Awakened Animals, and Sprites) with a 15/20/25 speed rate, as opposed to the land equivalents of 20/25/30.
What I have done with them is pick up that level 1 feat that gives you legs/swim speed for early mobility. Later as you go you start getting more and more transversal options or get them from envoy's that it becomes less of an issue and you can "evolve" out of that level 1 feat.
Having a standard conversion is a defense for both GMs and players, because it sets the vanilla baseline. A GM does not have to worry about pressure to use someone else's home rule, when the official conversion rule already exists.
So we come full circle…
My OP was regarding PFS, but now after a lot more debate related to home games, it appears there’s no standardization. Does that mean we’re back to the request for Paizo to let us know how we should be doing this with an outline of what to do at official tables and guidelines (or at least notice of what might become problematic in encounter design) for home games?
Having a standard conversion is a defense for both GMs and players, because it sets the vanilla baseline. A GM does not have to worry about pressure to use someone else's home rule, when the official conversion rule already exists.So we come full circle…
My OP was regarding PFS, but now after a lot more debate related to home games, it appears there’s no standardization. Does that mean we’re back to the request for Paizo to let us know how we should be doing this with an outline of what to do at official tables and guidelines (or at least notice of what might become problematic in encounter design) for home games?
I am still pretty confused why you would be expecting there to be standardization of handling cross-over content in people's home games.
There are nearly an infinite number of ways to combine elements from one game into the other and each of those could very easily want to bend the expectations of one game or the other...after all, why include content from a completely different genre of game and expect that all the base line assumptions of the one genre-centered game are going to hold up exactly the same?
Like if you want to include the Starfinder Dragonkin ancestry in your PF2 game, is it because you want the character to be from this far off distant planet? Or is it just because you like the aesthetics and wanted a more "dragon-like" PF2 ancestry? If it is the latter, I would really recommend waiting a couple of months, as the Draconic Codex is soon to release and going to offer these options more directly into PF2. If it is the former, and it is about the lore and bringing sci-fi elements into your pathfinder game, then the table really should get together and talk these things through. It would be just as fine to just let flying characters fly from level 1 as using ancestry feats from a different flying ancestry, depending on what your group wants.
Trying to insist that there needs to be 1 standardized way to combine material from these two systems, or maybe that there needs to be 2, one for bringing content from one game into the other, really ignores the whole point of how the material from the other system is much like a slider that will shape the games adventure design expectations based upon how much content you want to blend.
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I am still pretty confused why you would be expecting there to be standardization of handling cross-over content in people's home games
So we come full circle…
My OP was regarding PFS, but now after a lot more debate related to home games, it appears there’s no standardization. Does that mean we’re back to the request for Paizo to let us know how we should be doing this with an outline of what to do at official tables and guidelines (or at least notice of what might become problematic in encounter design) for home games?
And I am very confused as to how you read ‘guidelines [which is italicized for emphasis](or at least notice of what might become problematic in encounter design’ as standardization. I have never said that things should be standardized and would hate for someone to tell me how to run my home games.
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We have guidelines though. For example, with movement speeds, we are told (on page 246 of the Starfinder GM core) "You should also be wary of special movement speeds, such as climbing and flight, that become available at a much lower level in Starfinder. While some Pathfinder adventures might not mind the low-level access to these speeds, you might want to adjust by instead using the progression of movement speed–related ancestry feats presented to other ancestries in Pathfinder."
For Society play, it seems like the folks in charge of society play just decided that the answer was "for special one-time character boons for participating in this playtest, it is fine for the characters to just have the low-level access. Otherwise, typically, the answer is that none of these ancestries are available."
That is kind of what I mean about how trying to standardize this seems against the point of having it available as content. The most basic "standardization" is probably just to not modify anything and just allow not allow content that challenges adventure expectations that are important to the game you are going to be playing and allow the stuff that doesn't challenge those adventure or narrative tone expectations. GMs that want to hybridize beyond that can just look at other ancestry examples that have similar types of movement, but having all ancestries work exactly the same way at a system level gets really boring fast. It works in a one off context because things aren't all the same if only one of them is actually in use, but if 4 players play 4 different ancestries that fly and they all fly exactly the same way, that does get a little boring.
Strix and Awakened animals (flying heritage) for example are very similar, but they do things a little differently, so while the level 1 flying abilities are very similar, Strix are still going to have a Heritage boon while the awakened animal is going to have an additional unarmed strike and the ability to talk to certain kinds of animals. Guidelines are either going to be "look at these and pick something close that feels right for your game" (what we have), or they are going to have to define it for each potential ancestry based upon what else the ancestry gets, and have to deal with the fact that both systems are going to keep getting new ancestries at a pretty quick pace.
I think it was very smart to go the first route and just point out some issues and suggest where to look for solving them based upon what your game needs.
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We have guidelines though. For example, with movement speeds, we are told (on page 246 of the Starfinder GM core) "You should also be wary of special movement speeds, such as climbing and flight, that become available at a much lower level in Starfinder. While some Pathfinder adventures might not mind the low-level access to these speeds, you might want to adjust by instead using the progression of movement speed–related ancestry feats presented to other ancestries in Pathfinder."
Would it be possible to explain, in specific and concrete terms, what this text means to you? In particular, the last sentence.
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We have guidelines though. For example, with movement speeds, we are told (on page 246 of the Starfinder GM core) "You should also be wary of special movement speeds, such as climbing and flight, that become available at a much lower level in Starfinder. While some Pathfinder adventures might not mind the low-level access to these speeds, you might want to adjust by instead using the progression of movement speed–related ancestry feats presented to other ancestries in Pathfinder."Would it be possible to explain, in specific and concrete terms, what this text means to you? In particular, the last sentence.
It means if I am a GM, and a player approaches me about wanting to use a flying SF ancestry, and explains why they want this, and how it can fit in the campaign, and I don’t think it’d be appropriate to just use the ancestry as is…then I look for a relatively similar PF2 ancestry and probably choose the ancestry flight abilities(feats, heritage) and speeds that match that other ancestry.
It means if I am a GM, and a player approaches me about wanting to use a flying SF ancestry, and explains why they want this, and how it can fit in the campaign, and I don’t think it’d be appropriate to just use the ancestry as is…then I look for a relatively similar PF2 ancestry and probably choose the ancestry flight abilities(feats, heritage) and speeds that match that other ancestry.
Could you point to the bit of the text that says you'd have to choose an ancestry with flight? Would you be applying the feats directly, or would you be creating separate feats?
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It means if I am a GM, and a player approaches me about wanting to use a flying SF ancestry, and explains why they want this, and how it can fit in the campaign, and I don’t think it’d be appropriate to just use the ancestry as is…then I look for a relatively similar PF2 ancestry and probably choose the ancestry flight abilities(feats, heritage) and speeds that match that other ancestry.Could you point to the bit of the text that says you'd have to choose an ancestry with flight? Would you be applying the feats directly, or would you be creating separate feats?
It in the section of text I quoted earlier from page 246 of the GM core:
“While some Pathfinder adventures might not mind the low-level access to these speeds, you might want to adjust by instead using the progression of movement speed–related ancestry feats presented to other ancestries in Pathfinder.”
It doesn’t really matter if you make up your own feats that are just close but maybe a little different, or use the other ancestry’s feats directly. Either way is fine if gives everyone at the table something that looks fun and fair enough for your table.
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You’re really not getting it.
I’d very likely do different adjustments depending on the campaign, the other parts of the character (especially class) and even the player.
For me, the current guidelines are just about perfect. I would personally just about ignore (I’d glance at them to see if they were good enough to save me time and likely decide they weren’t) any conversion guide built by Paizo. I’d be a little more likely to follow a fan built guide.
So, the value of a guide to me approximates 0. They have already given me what I want.
Before you speak the obvious, I fully realize that others would value the guide. I’d have no problem if Paizo decided it was worth their while to publish said guide but I wouldn’t buy it even if it was some ridiculously low price.
The existence of people like me lowers the value of a guide since it reduces the need. Only Paizo knows if they think it still worth their time.
But your continuing to try to browbeat people into your position is almost certainly counterproductive at this point
Agreed. For most GMs this should be a trivial exercise, and Paizo has already given hints for GMs to watch out for. As much hoopla has been made about the two systems being built on the same engine Starfinder does not have Pathfinder written on the cover or vice versa. Remember, d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars and 3.5 D&D were technically built off the same engine, but had wildly different expectations for characters. Anyone expecting to use one system or feature in the other should expect some conversion work.
I ran a combined game back during the d20 heyday, inspired by Chrono Trigger, which combined those systems and it worked out okay, but it required a lot of on the fly calls in the moment.
If Paizo thinks it's worthwhile, they'll put it out. In the mean time I expect we'll have some of our awesome community writers put out conversion guides as time goes on if there's a need, just like the incredible class guides that are available now. Those guides still won't cover all the edge cases and the GM will have to make decisions on the fly and adjust as needed.
For Society play, I would imagine the best thing to do would be to keep them separated until such time they've had a chance to thoroughly test things, and the boon was probably not thought out very well, but it doesn't mean they're going to open the floodgates going forward.
It in the section of text I quoted earlier from page 246 of the GM core:
“While some Pathfinder adventures might not mind the low-level access to these speeds, you might want to adjust by instead using the progression of movement speed–related ancestry feats presented to other ancestries in Pathfinder.”
It doesn’t really matter if you make up your own feats that are just close but maybe a little different, or use the other ancestry’s feats directly. Either way is fine if gives everyone at the table something that looks fun and fair enough for your table.
The problem with this is that what you're saying isn't actually in the text. The text does not state to use a flying ancestry, and does not state whether to give the Speed as feats or innate progression. Those are calls you made, and the implementation you decide upon does have an impact on the player whose character is being affected, so it does matter. Aside from demonstrating how the rules we have could use a bit more clarity, along with guidance on elements that aren't covered in Starfinder's GM Core at all, this also shows that the existence of rules does not prevent GMs from making decisions over their own games.
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I think than ambiguity is intentional, i.e. Paizo assessing how much resources they want to spend on being specific on this issue, and deciding "not much." This allows different GMs to come up with different ways to handle it.
I think there is a difference between text that leaves options open and text that is simply vague, though. Ambiguous text lends itself to misunderstandings and rules debates such as this one, and in the case of that particular guidance can still lead to problems if someone decides to give a character always-on flight at level 5 in Pathfinder. Text that is specific avoids this, even if it allows for multiple options. I personally do think moosher12 has it right in that coversion guides are perfectly capable of laying out multiple options and even giving the GM leeway to homebrew their own solutions, so long as they clearly lay out what the different expectations are for each game. This isn't something that requires that much more effort compared to writing an equal amount of ambiguous text, and it would be much more effective at its intended goal than guidance that is difficult to interpret consistently.
Nonspecific guidance avoids the mistake of creating a single rules set which turns out to be (e.g.) good for the PF2E dragonkin game but terrible for the SF2E sprite game.
The advice given is for converting flight Speeds on Starfinder ancestries to Pathfinder, not the other way round, so it wouldn't apply to sprites in the first place.