I thought the idea of playing a skeleton exemplar would be fun, especially for RP. However, the mechanics of trying to build this character is sending me on a frustrating goose chase where some traits (or the lack thereof) seem somewhat odd. In particular, healing for the character. Now, I get that playing undead characters (such as skeleton or damphir) is supposed to come with the challenge of dealing with void healing, but I'm realizing the options seem extremely limited. Please indulge my rant and consider the path I have been down:
The exemplar has 3 basic ikons that can work for healing:
-- Scar of the Survivor: the transcendence ability, No Scar But This, does a great deal of healing. Basically able to do the equivalent of a 1 action Heal spell at the rank for the character's level every other round. This amount of potent healing makes some sense that it would have the Vitality trait. Of course having that trait makes undead types unable to use it.
-- Barrow's Edge: the transcendence ability, Drink of My Foes, allows the exemplar to sort of drain of health from those they damage with their weapon. Unlike No Scar But This, Drink of My Foes requires the exemplar to successfully strike with the weapon and then can only heal half of the damage dealt. I start scratching my head at this point as to why the Vitality trait is on this ability. The healing is much more conditional, and the mechanics seem right along the line of something "vampiric." But it has the Vitality trait, so again, undead characters cannot use it.
-- Horn of Plenty: this one doesn't have the Vitality trait, so undead can use it just fine. But wait, the free Elixir of Life only works on living creatures (and BTW, automatons and poppets, although constructs, are still considered "living" beings in the rules of PF2 so they could use it just fine). OK, the Elixir of Life doesn't work, but at least undead characters could load up the Horn with Oil of Unlife... except Oil of Unlife is not a potion or elixir. (Why does it NOT have the Potion or Elixir trait?) I only found 1 elixir or potion with healing properties that undead could use at early levels: Soothing Tonic (Lesser) [lvl 2 elixir] gives fast healing 1 for 1 minute. The next available potions or elixirs are lvl 5 items.
Now, perhaps one might say, "Get a wand of Harm or Soothe," "There are feats that allow you to effectively cast Harm," "Train in medicine and use Treat Wounds." Very well, but in the mean time while I try to reach the necessary character levels, train in the extra required feats to use them (and in some cases the additional extra feats to use them as an undead), and necessary wealth needed for some of these items; I very likely will have to spend a significant chunk of gold on consumables that use up extra actions. (As mentioned before, even construct ancestries that would normally not be affected by these things suddenly get to be considered "living" and don't have to worry at all about these kinds of restrictions and barriers to being healed.)
I get that being an undead character is supposed to be a challenge in several ways. I'm not against needing to deal with the topsy turvy mechanics of Void Healing. What is making me pull my hair out is the woefully lacking options for undead characters to stay alive (so to say) long enough to achieve anything like the survivability almost any other ancestry or heritage can enjoy with far, far less use of resources at level 1.
Elixirs of life do heal Undead
Can you confirm that as official rulings for Pathfinder Society? My GM's ruled at the table that the creature using it has to be alive (not undead). The text says "living creature":
Elixirs of life accelerate a living creature's natural healing processes and immune system. Upon drinking this elixir, you regain the listed number of Hit Points and gain an item bonus to saving throws against diseases and poisons for 10 minutes.
Turns out this is also covered under errataPage 548: To make it clearer that elixir of life only works on living creatures due to the healing trait, change the first sentence to "Elixirs of life accelerate a living creature’s natural healing processes and immune system."
I think it's clear they have rules as intended for Elixir of Life is they don't work on undead. In my opinion, if they really want to make that clear, they need it to have the Vitality trait. Many times the kind of text they have there in the first sentence is more flavor for the effect rather than being authoritative on functionality.
Trying to search though the forums, this has been an issue of confusion and frustration for many years. Not just for skeletons, but damphir as well. Honestly, I with the devs would give a little grace in a couple places to give such characters some more flexibility in options and not impose extra punishment to have even basic options (e.g., needing Stitch Flesh to use Treat Wounds).
The real answer to your problem is to ask the GM for what is the tiniest of mechanically significant homebrew changes.
Ask them if your PC's ikons can be the tiniest bit different than the RaW to reflect the differences in that character, chiefly, that the ikon healing will be compatible with the whole void healing mechanic.
I think it's clear they have rules as intended for Elixir of Life is they don't work on undead. In my opinion, if they really want to make that clear, they need it to have the Vitality trait. Many times the kind of text they have there in the first sentence is more flavor for the effect rather than being authoritative on functionality.
Trying to search though the forums, this has been an issue of confusion and frustration for many years. Not just for skeletons, but damphir as well. Honestly, I with the devs would give a little grace in a couple places to give such characters some more flexibility in options and not impose extra punishment to have even basic options (e.g., needing Stitch Flesh to use Treat Wounds).
The interesting thing about Elixir of Life not having the Vitality Trait and instead just saying "Living creature" is that it still doesn't work on an Undead Oracle with Nudge the Scales that picks Vitality and is thus healed by Vitality effects.
This is similar to the problem with Heal in the same situation: an Undead with Vitality Healing (from Nudge the Scales or otherwise) still can't be healed by Heal because they're not a valid target of the spell.
The whole "living/undead vs vitality/void" situation is a mess of inconsistent usage of terms and applications of rules. It has been for a long time. It seems unlikely that Paizo is ever going to fix it. It would be much simpler for everyone if these spells lacked the extra targeting restrictions and simply used Vitality/Void healing terminology consistently. (Soothe goes this way which is why it works on everything, after Book of the Dead changed it.)
I also think creating things like Stich Flesh and Oil of Unlife were a mistake to begin with, since they are basically just taxes on playing an undead PC that make it harder to function in a group. Inconsistent ones, at that, since Battle Medicine works fine without Stich Flesh.
Thus, the only real fix to this is "talk to your GM" because the RAW on some of this stuff creates situations like this that just don't work well at the table. It requires house rules to actually work well for a character concept like this. These features should work for your character since that's literally the point, and that they just didn't take Undead PCs into account whatsoever when making them combined with the inconsistent ways these effects work regarding Vitality/Void/Living/Undead shouldn't be a barrier. (Kinda like how Mythic forgot that Kineticist exists.)
Hopefully your GM is willing to house rule something that functions for you. I know I would.
(That said... if you have the feats for it, Oracle Dedication and Nudge the Scales would let Scar of the Survivor work.)
The real answer to your problem is to ask the GM for what is the tiniest of mechanically significant homebrew changes.
Ask them if your PC's ikons can be the tiniest bit different than the RaW to reflect the differences in that character, chiefly, that the ikon healing will be compatible with the whole void healing mechanic.
The problem is that this isn't just any PF2e group. This is for Pathfinder Society. The GM's have to hold very strictly to rules as written, or an official ruling/clarification about rules as intended by proper sources at Paizo. If this were a home group then there are a couple points I would be willing to argue for some homebrew tweaks.
The problem is that this isn't just any PF2e group. This is for Pathfinder Society. The GM's have to hold very strictly to rules as written, or an official ruling/clarification about rules as intended by proper sources at Paizo.
Then your next step is to go to the PFS forums and see if there is help there. If your search doesn't find anything, then ask about it and link to this thread
Another thing to consider is that PFS is short scenarios rather than long dungeon delves. You get free healing items at the start of the scenario (and can choose the Oil of Unlife for any Void Healing character) and that alone is usually enough to keep you alive through the scenario. And you heal up automatically at the end as long as you survive.
But if you have the points needed to play a Skeleton ancestry, you probably already know that.