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As per the title of the thread. I'm a bit stymied by this. Bless Water is a [Good] spell, why isn't Bless Weapon?
For basically the same reason that Bless isn't a [Good] spell, either - so that evil clerics can use it, too.
Bless Water is designed to imbue a water with holiness (ie, good) and sounds better than "Make Water Holy" as a name. Bless and Bless Weapon are equally useful to both good and evil clerics, and so can't have an alignment descriptor.
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From a fluff perspective, a blessing isn't automatically a good thing; it's simply asking for the favor of a god.
If that god happens to be, say, Asmodeus, then it definitely wouldn't be a [good] blessing (even though it's still smiting evil - it would just be intended to smite evil that isn't under Asmodeus's control).
I have to agree with the OP. This reads as a potential oversight... that is, 'The weapon also becomes good-aligned.'
That's some fairly potent stuff. I can see the debate raging back and forward. The Asmo example is one method. However, on the other hand, similar arguments could be made for other spells. And on the other, again, this is also imbuing the weapon with the essence of good.
From a flavor perspective, it can definitely be twitchy.
Paizo does occasionally make oversights, even in core classes and core spells. This may be one of them, though without an official response, we'll not know. Until then, it's not listed as Good.
Well if this an oversight, I'd say the fact that the Antipaladin doesn't have an equivalent to Bless Weapon is one as well.
Point being, just because something seems off, as long as it doesn't 'break' anything. It isn't some huge oversight... the Glory domain isn't necessarily 'good' alignment. Making the spell [good] could prevent some from casting the spell (as noted above).
It's easy enough to figure out how bless weapon might work for other alignments. I like to think of it as align weapon, greater.
Evil gods can bless their followers and their followers' weapons too.
Evil gods do not, however, have any interest in creating Holy Water. And as far as I know, there's no such thing as Unholy Water.
It's pretty much just holy water except for good outsiders and not undead. It's slightly weaker because it doesn't hurt undead, if you care about that sort of thing.
If you really do care, you can easily houserule that it heals undead.
But Bless Weapon makes the weapon Good-Aligned. Why would evil deities want to make weapons that basically harm their own followers?
There's more than one evil deity and they don't all get along. Neither do their followers.
But Bless Weapon makes the weapon Good-Aligned. Why would evil deities want to make weapons that basically harm their own followers?
Hrm...good point, I hadn't remembered that. Was just thinking of the +1.
....err.....
....
....guess the devs didn't think about it too closely. :p
Taking into account that bless weapon is paladin-only weapon that infuses weapon with power of good and making it a choice weapon against evil the most probable response is: oversight long ago during development of D&D 3.0 with no one noticing it during the transition to 3.5 and later PF.
It's actually not Paladin-only; the Glory domain grants it as well, meaning it's available to Clerics.
And as Ipslore and others pointed out, an evil alignment doesn't automatically mean cooperation. An evil lord who wants a particular piece of land to build his keep on will happily slaughter an entire tribe of goblins even though they probably share an alignment, and the weapon would benefit him in that instance.
Taking into account that bless weapon is paladin-only weapon
And Glory Domain.
Glory deities include Gorum (CN) and Rubicante (LE).
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Because the alignment rules are entirely arbitrary.
Holy Smite is in the Glory Domain list...
Doesn't the whole Cleric rule of "you can't cast spells of opposite alignment to your deity" kind of make a domain spell not available to clerics of Rubicante?
Fun trivia: There's nothing in the rules that says that casting a [Good] spell is a good-aligned action, or that casting an [Evil] spell is an evil-aligned action. So actually, the alignment-spell rules are even more silly.
Well, it can be extrapolated by the fact that good deities prevent good casters from using Evil spells, for example.
IIRC, casting an evil spell is an evil act in PFS (and probably in Golarion, even outside of PFS), and back in 3.5, I remember books about it too.
But you seems to be right. Core there is nothing on this.
Still, It sounds wrong to me that a Good character use an Evil mean to accomplish anything without any downside.
I still love the poster child for confusing spells: Infernal Healing, since it has the [Evil] descriptor.
So, explain how healing is evil?
Well, it's not like you let evil power take over your flesh to heal you. :)
Remember it's a spell given to his follower by Asmodeus.