kaid's page

Ohh ok, thank you! Does sneak attack work for bombs?

I would assume it does. Bombs are thrown weapons.

But what do all of these foxes say?

In Pathfinder, I feel like it's legitimate to not wear clothing in a universe that once semi-canonically crossed over with Red Sonja and Tarzan. Those are the Ur-Texts of Semi-To-Mostly-Nude adventuring heroes. Maybe we need an archetype that gives you an AC boost when rocking the Chainmail Bikini?

In Starfinder, polite society frowns upon it more, but I think there's actually more chances for it. It would be really easy to just only use holographic projector based "clothing". I figure most Astrazoans would WANT to avoid the same distinct pieces of clothing that they can be recognized by. Maybe the Nudist archetype would give you a boost to using the SF2E-Exclusive "Livestream" exploration activity as well?

Starfinder is interesting because a lot of their armor basically is clothing in a space station somebody sporting environmental body armor is probably expected as a reasonable safety measure. But they also have a lot of armor that looks like normal clothing reinforced with force fields. There is also weirder stuff like hardlight armor where you are just wearing some projectors and could be totally naked just running around wearing a light show.

Given how many aliens are wandering around I suspect if you just wanted to strut around au naturale you would get a couple glances but otherwise probably not much else.

This is the adventure path where we find that aroden had a very very large flock of crows as followers.

Seems like maybe something along the line of the book of the dead which could be a good format to cover more first world info and stuff.

I would guess rage of elements gets "remastered" when/if they need to reprint it. I suspect it mostly would be some minor edits to de OGL whatever remaining remnants are in it but it was already pretty much made with the remaster in mind so I doubt there would be much done to it.

Clebsch73 wrote:

Part of the problem is the irrationality of claiming someone's sensitive scent sense can translate chemicals floating in the air which could arrive from various places can somehow suss out where things are located, particularly without the aid stereoscopic sensors like two eyes and two ears provide for sight and hearing. I can think of ways of justifying this but my way may be different than the GMs way and this could lead to questions of "Does the deafblind PC know about x."

As moosher12, human smell is in stereo. Interestingly, the stereo effect is subconscious; we can't tell which nostril is receiving more sent but our brains can still figure out the direction.

Now, looking at what wolves can smell.

Wolves' noses can focus nostrils in different directions, giving them an ever stronger stereo sense of smell, allowing a wolf to pinpoint the exact direction a scent is coming from. (This is why Vlaka can have a precise sense of smell.)

The question becomes how fast is a sense of smell vs vision. Looking that up, I found that the brain reacts to smells on a rapid temporal scale similar to vision and hearing. It's how smells move through the air that gets weird. What a smell looks like

In most of that video, there are no objects in the path of the smells being visualized. So I'm imagining that Vlaka, seeing the layout of a room, is sensing the placement of objects by how smell flows around them. This should also help with knowing where the ground is. Chasing pray would be like following the wake of a boat until you got to the boat, and knowing the wake narrows as it gets closer to the boat, you could tell how far away it is.

Receptor Cells: Wolves 200 million / Humans 5 million
Portion of the brain dedicated to processing scents:
Wolves the size of a human fist / Humans the size of a pea.

Range: Detect prey from 1 to 2 miles, depending on wind, up to 60 miles for massive herds or forest...

Trying to visualize with a precise sense of smell would be like for a GM is trippy. A dogs sense of smell for as good as it is gets flagged as imprecise in pathfinder. Walking into a room must look/smell like a weird movie of people and what they did/are doing currently. Knowing at a sniff what kind of drugs/food/drink somebody has eaten recently. A lot of hazards like find the hidden object/explosive have the vlaka going duh it is right there why can't you guys sense it. The biggest open question is when they are in a suit in vacuum what they can sense. Presumably vlaka have armor modifications to allow them to function basically normally but that is still a bit up to GM's. Still if sighted people can have a heads up display no reason vlaka can't have a smell o vision version of it.

Mark Quarry matches the fantasy of the monster hunter really well, I think we can all imagine Geralt tearing down the wanted poster for some awful bog creature, asking around the locals for info, going and getting something it's specifically weak to and then tracking and killing it, the class perfectly captures that feel!

But most Pathfinder games don't. If we just look at published APs there's really not a lot of times where that scene above happens, it's far more often investigating places full of different creatures without knowing what's in there to begin with. Let alone Society scenarios where you might only have one or two fights and if the bad guy isn't highlighted ahead of time your main ability is significantly hampered.

It feels like the ability will play really well in a game about hunting monsters, everywhere else it'll feel like you're missing out on something that feels like it should be a core ability. Hopefully they'll consider that.

True but the action is an exploration action where you are actively asking and looking around and digging into things. Should be pretty reasonable for the locals to have some idea what is lurking around enough to get you a quarry target. It doesn't need to be some named enemy just something you can identify as your quarry. Most scenarios don't bring this stuff up in advance because it isn't needed for most people. If you take the pack version of this it is even easier yet find a rumor about one group of things in the dungeon or area should be very reasonable to do.

I think just the phrasing of "I am taking trophies from defeated enemies" kind of squicks me out, even if you're just taking their belt buckles or whatever. Like it's not the sort of behavior that strikes me that a person who's not serial-killer coded would do.

I understand wanting to play a monster hunter, but do I have to be one that collects mementos? Like why is this the basic class theme?

It kinda is adventurer 101 go slay beasts take their stuff and often wear it. What is that if not taking trophies.

Honestly could be a lot of things it probably only matters if it is symbolic to you and tied somehow to the thing you slew. Could even be something like a drawing you do and then some hair/blood from the target or some kind of small fetish/totem item you make to represent it.

Work with your GM if you want it to be less grisly I don't see any reason you could not flavor it however you want.

It obviously culminates with helldivers as you fight for democracy and super earth!

Chymist's Eye states, "You drink a chymist’s eye

vial, gaining the ability to detect your quarry within 30 feet as a precise sense for the next 10 minutes".

Does this mean you can clearly see your quarry through any solid cover within that range?

That is how I read it. Basically it is engage wall hack you know exactly where your quarry is if you are in range.

kaid wrote:

I think that's right. It also seems like, as written, you can only use one-handed crossbows and you need to actually reload to gain the benefits.

"you can load a hunting spike into a crossbow when you reload it. The next time you use Hunting Spike, its thrown trait uses the crossbow's range increment"

"Requirements You have a free hand and are wearing your consecrated panoply signature tool"

So you aren't actually firing the crossbow.

Yeah stuff like this makes me kinda think this is going to get some errata or a look at. Just seems kinda weird and underwhelming like why would I even try to shoot these out of a crossbow at those levels why not just shoot the crossbow and do more damage. Unless you knew a target had a massive weakness to holy/unholy and at low levels that just isn't common enough to warrant all of this.

I may be reading it wrong but about the only part of the crossbow that is used is its range so minimal reasons to ever use the heavier ones. The damage is going to be kinda meh regardless and it mostly is a weakness trigger projectile.

That makes sense, but all of it's abilities are just so... situational. it is a terrible weapon to use until level 7, at which point it becomes just a bad one.

Specially when the daredevil lets you throw random props and make use of your handwraps to empower them. For such a major pick it seems just lacking. The armor is really nice the blood seeker blades look really nice the potion seems interesting but you can grab that feat that lets you spray a cone of fire with it and then you have you have holy/unholy chip damage walmart daggers. One of those things does not seem like the other.

Ok, so first impression was hype, both of these seem fun, and the slayer turned out to be way cooler than I was expecting by being explicitly a Witcher/Monster Hunter (as in, the franchise) and the specialized tools seem super cool.

Second Impression is that I want a bigger emphasis on stunts that earn you Adrenaline for the daredevil because adrenaline already feels like a good benefit-- feats that have the press trait are cool and I like how they intersect with the flurry benefit, but I want more that have the risky trait, and not the press trait. Daring Stunt is fine, but I'd prefer for more feats that serve that niche to mix and match with press stunts.

On the flip, the Slayer is awesome, but I'm concerned primarily with the balance between the subclasses, vis a vis their 'thing' that exists parallel to sneak attack / edge benefit / rage etc.

Bloodseeker feels mandatory right now, because its the best one by far and its reinforce gives a lot of sheer output-- flavorwise I really like Panoply, but the daggers have too much suck factor with their slow rune progression and lack of property runes. I love their intersection with crossbow though, and the feat to upgrade them. Chemyst Vial seems to be lackluster until the level 7-8 when the spec kicks in and the feat becomes available, I think the scaling is just too low for what it's trying to do right now.

We'll see if my feelings change as we get into the playtest period, especially if any of my players choose to test it in our west marches.

So far first read I am pretty similar. Base level vial maybe needs a bit more early game oompf and the panoply daggers need to start better. You are giving up a really good weapon option to pick it up so it should start better than chip weakness damage vs holy/unholy targets. It is a neat idea but as one of the two offensive options it needs to stand up a bit better to the bloodseeker blade. Doesn't need to be the same damage but it should be better than just basic daggers.

Nicolas Paradise wrote:

I don't think I need any other weapons as a solarian because of solar weapons and flares.

Solarions weapons are kinda crap at low levels. I'd strongly recommend that you get a good melee weapon. Personally, I really like the Fangblade because boost can be very powerful (its essentially a free Vicious Swing)

A D8 1 handed weapon with reach at level one seems reasonable. The extra reactive triggers seems like it would offset lack of boost.

I think the similarity of powers between classes was what killed 4e for my group. When you have a warrior ability which is a forward cone that has basically same use/stats as a mage flaming spell had our warriors going I cast x ability and it just really wrecked immersion.

I know a lot of stuff is already kinda like that anyway but in 4e it was so blatant it you just couldn't unsee it.

AI regulation is going to be driven by competitive pressures, necessity, and a big fight for control of content in the creative industries.

I'm more looking forward to the robots. That's going to be fun if we can send AI robots to colonize other planets as a preparation for human habitation. We have self-driving cars right now, automated warehouses, and I hope at some point robot maids/cooks that will allow us more time to engage in less tedious activities. Science fiction is coming to life in our time. Pretty fun.

The terminator is science fiction too.

Another fun fact about the Rogue Ruffien

if you somehow get a natural weapon with a decent attack
he makes a great wrestler
grabbing makes the enemy off-guard, which means you can make a suplex - as a sneak-attack

To be fair who really expects to be suplexed from the shadows?

I’m interested to see the mechanics behind both.

Daredevil: it sounds like it could be fun to play, if your game has combats a) provide the “props”/environmental objects you need and b) your combats last long enough for any of the options to be meaningful.

I hate the name. While I’m totally able to dovprce a class chassis from a concept, “Daredevil” conjured nothing I’m interested in narratively.

Slayer: again, some of what I’ve read seems like it could be fun, but the “10 minute preparation” thing gives me goosebumps. A signature weapon opens up a huge design space I completely expect Paizo to a) not explore deeply enough or b) in any way I find inspiring.

[EDIT to add: funny to see Paizo *finally* getting around to the monster parts salvaging stuff that Kobold Press, Roll for Combat and about a billion other RPGs/designers have had for years. I fully expect it to be watered down and not very granular or fun.]

I fully expect to find both ultimately not something I want to play with a few mechanics I might poach and find myself waiting (as I did with the Kineticist, Animist/Exemplar, Guardian/Commander and whatever the one/s before those was) for the next playtest.

I think slayer will have a bit of stuff like investigator. Unless you are going into something totally blind it shouldn't be hard to set a target to hunt. I am guessing like investigator there will be feats that let you pick one on the fly or at the start of a fight as you level up.

I'm hoping for spherical power armor for Novians, with the Novian being the power source, to make a miniature Dysion's sphere. Another option would be making a Novian becoming a Dysion's sphere into an Evolunist niche.

Barathu in power armor for when you want to RP one of the killer robot things from the matrix haha.

I hope they revisit the multiclass dedications a bit. The bounded spellcasting multiclass stuff doesn't make a lot of sense. Bounded spellcasting is worse than normal spellcasting because the Summoner and Magus gets other benefits, but a multiclass magus is just paying higher level feats for worse spellcasting than a multiclass wizard.

The eidolon from Summoner archetype is really awkward too. It gets hit from too many angles, limited abilities, reduced stats, worse action economy, proficiency stuff.

It's actually not a terrible feat, but for the wrong reasons. Because eidolons have their own stats and own boosts, you can make yourself good at skills your class would otherwise be bad at. A +0 Cha rogue with a trickster fey eidolon gives themselves a +3 (that scales!) by having them use diplomacy instead.

That's pretty nice, especially on classes that get extra skill increases, but also anecdotally just not really what people who want to take the summoner archetype are actually interested in from my experience.

.. As one minor example, there's no real need for the eidolon to have stunted weapon proficiency. It already shares your MAP and actions, so it could just copy your own weapon proficiency. Somehow this would even be better for casters, because Wizards hit expert before Eidolons can... which sort of drives home how needlessly bad the multiclass eidolon is here.

Yeah summoner archetype is odd. It isn't something that is very useful in combat and most times should be stowed. But it is handy for exploration for another set of checks and great for helping with skill stuff. Useful but not generally in the way people at a glance want it to be.

I would say it absolutely works. Nothing in the feat or trigger says it doesn't. Breath of Life has limitations, but being a spell it can also be used as long as you have slots, spell gems/chips/scrolls/wands/whatever. Fish From The Fall's Edge lacks limitations but is only once per day and half the range. It's a feat for a single class that does what another effect does but slightly better/different. That seems to be in line with Paizo's 2e design and I'd argue very much on purpose.

Plus...from what I hear, there are many more "everyone dies" instances so, giving them this one win might help offset future disappointment with bad luck just ending things.

That said...

For a game surrounding a trait system, I'm shocked it is utilized so poorly. How simple to have a trait like...True-Death...with something along the lines of... The death of creatures caused by effects with the True-Death trait cannot be prevented by any means.

Funnily enough Disintegrate doesn't even have the normal Death trait and nothing in the spell says that the creature dies...so strictly by RAW it doesn't die when reaching 0HP...the creature is simply blasted to fine powder but otherwise...Dying as normal? Obviously I would never actually play it that way. But with translation issues, non-native speakers, strict rule lawyers, etc I could see where arguments could be made.

We see it happening here with a "you die" effect yet nothing saying it can't be prevented by strict RAW which opens up the argument of RAI.

haha get disintegrated would give new meaning to rub some dirt on it and walk it off as you slowly pull your ash pile back together.

In general, a LOT of the power budget of Alchemist, excluding Bomber, is weighted way too late in the progression.

Chirurgeon, as mentioned, is good after level 13, bad before. Same for mutagenist, who until the double mutagen at 13 has almost 0 subclass features. Toxicologist desperately needs level 8 to have a passable chance to inflict his poisons, and etc.

Yeah alchemists at low levels can do a lot of things OK like bombers can be a party healer or a chir can do a lot of mutagen stuff or bomb because at lower levels the difference between being specced for it or not is not that huge. I think tox is one of the few that really isn't great for others to dabble in.

One thing for chirugeon They have a fair bit of options to help remove/mitigate a variety of conditions even at lower level as an additive . So even though their healers are not as good at those levels directly but they still have a lot of utility for helping with conditions.

Guns are mostly very good for gunslingers. The stats of the guns really leans into gunslingers improved accuracy to allow for some serious crit fishing and slingers have enough built in reload stuff that getting a couple shots in a round is reasonable.

Every time I read gideron authority my brain wants to read it as the gridiron authority. I picture hobgoblins with football gear on but in SPAAAACCEEE.

You could use a buckler as a shield implement. Obvious downsides in reduced AC and hardness though.

Can even attach a shield boss to that though based on the hands entry for shield boss you might need to change grip and “hold” the buckler to use the shield boss - which might also prevent you from raising the buckler. It’s not really clear.

Using the buckler as your implement it would at least gain the bonuses to hardness from the thaum implement and it would still get the auto heal/repair stuff and being able to use it even when broken and still get some benefit to AC means not a ton of downside to blocking with the buckler now and then.

I think technically you could not shoot because of not having enough expend to complete the action but I would as a GM go with option 1. In theory you could aim your cone of fire such that you probably can do it by only having one target in it. Option 1 is just less doinking around trying to line that up.

Hello, I have a question about virtuous tanuki heritage.

Quote:

You can't become incapacitated by conventional alcohol if you don't wish to be.

What means "incapacitated by conventional alcohol" ? No off guard, clumsy, stupefied, unconscious from the stage ?

Thanks for your future answer.

If you look it up in archives of nethys it is spelled out. At different stages you are flat footed at stage 2 clumsy flat footed stupified at stage three clumsy and sickened at stage 4 and so on until you are unconcious. Tanunki can have big fun drinking everybody under the table and be as much or as little effected as they wish.

I do believe that some of the ancestry feats that got dropped for space from the playtest to the new starfinder races probably get added back. Not sure if vlaka would get any more as the galaxy guide ancestries had a more robust number of options.

I am sure they want some favorites from PF2 ancestries but they also going to want a lot of starfinder ones. I kinda suspect we get core race options from PF2 to starfinder them and then new Starfinder ancestries so I suspect probably not kholo or kitsune.

Yeah those rules are a bit odd.

For cold weapons it is generally shooting some fluid or cold ice projectile at a target. It is transmitting the energy once it is in contact with the target. Now if you had some kind of pure cold non physical gun sure maybe that would not work.

Fire weapons have a few issues. For things like plasma guns it should have no impact on them look at the sun plasma works fine in space. For flame thrower weapons if the chemical they are shooting has its own oxidizer those should work fine in space until it burns its fuel out. For lasers it is a beam of light the effect on the target is heat/fire but that is not radiating through space it is from direct interaction with a physical medium of the target.

Electrical kinda depends how the weapon works but with space suites and their insulation and the vacuum arguing that those don't work or work well.

I hope the new system makes boarding/counter boarding more viable/common. That lets people use their actual normal abilities a lot more frequently. In SF1 boarding was mostly mop up efforts after a ship was already basically disabled.

Honestly for a normal laser it probably makes sense for it to not work under water. Now there should be mods you can get that change the frequency on it so it can function underwater.

Also things like sonic weapons shouldn't work in a vacuum.

I suspect we should get a bunch more weapon mods with the tech core.

Holograms might be a subset of SRO. In SF1 it was basically a mini hologram projector drone that created the hardlight hologram body. It would makes sense if they just roll them in as a "lineage" of SRO.

Watching the STF Conline, and apparently Breneris (the otter folk), Dwarves, Elves, Novians (mini suns?), Talphi (A molefolk on Vesk 4), and Orocorans are confirmed for Galactic Ancestries. Poppets are confirmed NOT there.

Greys are explained to be "Not yet, but popular." Which if some of you remember a few old threads about the greys, makes me wonder if they'll be getting an Ikeshti-style thematic makeover. They said they wanted to focus on alien species that are more uniquely Starfinder first, though.

Funny thing about poppets is basically SRO could easily be Poppets of SF2. Your animated transformer robot toy gains a soul and becomes an SRO.

Zoken44 wrote:

I love the idea of a teleporter class. However, I had three different concepts of a teleporter that I tried to jam into one concept (teleport self, teleport others, thinking with Portals)

But if we boil it down to just Portals, that does allow for a much more coherent class. you can even call them "Drifters" since theoretically this would work by shunting things through the Drift, and it has the connotation of someone not staying in one place long.

I would also add in to a thinking with portals build that You can essentially slash with them as a special attack.

What about a spontaneous primal caster, who gains some sort of buff or rider ability from the planet they are on, like a purely primal Sorcerer, but instead of bloodline, it's a shifting ability based on the celestial body they are currently closest too, including a "Void" body if they want to attune to empty space.

Sounds more like an archetype than a full class to me. It'd basically be the geomancer archetype with a sci fi coat of paint. I think that'd be cool but I'm not so sure you'd be able to build an entire class around it.

A few rough ideas I could see taking shape as classes are things like,
*A teleportation-focused class, as previously mentioned.
*A class which creates terrain or otherwise manipulates the battlefield, laying down zones of damage, difficult terrain, zones of healing or buffing and the like. Essentially the turret mechanic, but with even more of a focus on battlefield control.
*A class who pilots a suit of power armor or some other form of smaller-scale mech. This could be one way to go if making more general power armor rules turns out to be too difficult to balance or too wordy; restrict it to a singular class and let them go full warmachine, with different modules they can install into and swap out of their armor based on need. Perhaps acting a bit like a commander's tactics in that you have a few that grow as you level, and...

I think the last one some kind of power armor focused character is probably a good choice for a more tech oriented character. Still I could also see it having bioorganic/necrotech/magic tech options. Some kind of high tech death knight in his necroskeletal armor could be pretty crazy and very starfinder.

Awesome. Good to see the wand get some love. 3d6 reflex at first level is damn good

And basically being guaranteed you should be able to get it off 2+ times in a fight is great. I liked the option before but if you kept rolling bad it feels not great where you get your main damage from it once in a fight just didn't feel very useful. Getting it every other round should make it a very solid choice for a ranged attack.

On the devil advocate side for nanocyte as an archetype, it's possible that it could end up (very roughly) like the cavalier PF2e archetype where you get to choose various nanite "powers" (expanded from the android ancestry feats, maybe). "Doing cool things with nanites" does seem to be a niche that has a broader application than limiting it to a single class (or ancestry).

Also if they eventually do an evolutionist type class you could easily have a more focused nanite related sub class that covers a lot of the feel of the old nanocyte.

Thanks for posting that video. It touches on most of the major conversations on SF2e in the forums lately. (Tech Core, classes, and starship combat)

Now to go research how FTL plays.

I can't recommend FTL enough it is the best 10 bucks I have spent. It is super addictive and very fun game. It can get really hectic as you are dealing with hull breaches/boarders/managing power and systems to keep in the fight.

Yeah although I sort of get it. Now that it is fully PF2 compatible doing some class archetypes may make a lot of sense like I can easily see biohacker becoming an alchemist class archetype.

well... I'm sad, but optimistic. At a Dev Panel recently it was confirmed that the Nanocyte would be brought into SF2e as an Archetype instead of a full class. I had hoped for a full class, but we'll see what the Dev's built of it. It's coming in Tech Core.

A bit sad it won't be a full class but could be a neat archetype to add flavor to a class. A mechanic with a nanocyte archetype could be a pretty fun thing to work with. I assume there will be feats to create nanite armor or weapon and maybe to deploy the nanite swarm cloud.

Guilt of the grave world also has some good examples of how use the cinematic starship combat stuff. It overall seems pretty fun and engaging enough. I do want the tactical combat rules because I like some crunch but there are a lot of space type things where the cinematic mode probably makes more sense so I suspect even once the tactical rules are out people wind up doing hybrid.

It's not just that but the way that I've seen Toxicologist played is a very hot topic. You generally poison every single weapon your Martials use and depending on how you read Toxicologist the poison immunity gets override with acid damage because it is possibly YOUR poison, which is the way I see Tox being used, an amazing first Strike with poisons on every Martial Weapon in the party...Is it cheesy, very...Is it intended, unsure because Paizo has yet to fix this issue.

It just another one of those things where you look back and question the Balance....

That does not seem like it should be a question that tox poisons use their class ability vs poison immunity. It does not matter whose blade it is on the tox made that poison so the effect is their improved capability. A poison has no idea if it is on your weapon or somebody else's weapon.

For that yeah you basically need the others to have enough consumables to get her on her bony feet so that she can heal herself up.

One thing to note in starfinder is a lot of abilities that affect movement have the transversal trait. With that trait you can substitute any movement type you want for the abilities movement. So for things like the solarian stellar rush instead of doing the two actions to stride you could use the two actions to fly.

The main hinderance though is stepping. I sort of recommend taking the feat that lets them have legs initially then they can evolve out of it later as they get more transversal options.

(We don't know when it'll be out, just "later than GenCon" so far. Late 2026 is also possible.)

Yeah I am holding out some hope for it being the fall/winter release. I can see them wanting it to be a gen con release but I am not sure holding onto it that long is going to be viable.

Erm, ackschualualy. Formians originated as a D&D creature.

Though that's probably why the lore is sparce. I have a similar issue where bugbears have very little Golarion lore, and it urks me, because I've been curious to see what it'd be like if they got the goblin/hobgoblin treatment.

I think the lore/art/descriptions are different enough for formians to not be an issue. Basically the word formian would basically mean ant like so pretty generic.

For those who don't want the complexity, they can just save up their free formulas? Not for higher level formulas, of course. But if you don't want to spend the time going through the item lists looking for the next thing because you are happy with the items you are already able to create, then I don't see why that should be forced to happen at that exact time.

Just write an IOU for the level of item formula that you would get and continue playing.

I don't see a GM having any issue with it if their players just want to hold off but they may want you to note the level of those formula so you don't save up to suddenly get a bunch of higher ranked things. Still I see alchemists as wanting their apothacary shop worth of different things. Versatility on the fly with the VV is one of the big strengths of the alchemist. The bigger your library of formula the better you can whip out the right tool for the occasion.

You will wind up with a subset of every day used stuff but it is nice having access to make other stuff as needed in case it becomes necessary.

If you find yourself getting a bit overwhelmed getting those alchemist cards is handy so you can just have the cards for what you know in front of you staring you in the face haha.

Not having access to stabilize is a challenge but there are options for magical healing like soothe and other powers that can heal undead as long as they are not vitality based and it also works with the vitality network mystic power. Given mystics are likely going to be the main healer most people are going to come across that actually makes undead characters a bit easier to work with in starfinder than pathfinder.