Wow this discussion just makes it so I never want to join Pathfinder Society. From the sounds of it you guys are saying that the rules prevent crafted or spell produced items from persisting from game to game. If this applies only to PCs, it means that PCs should never ever invest in any of the craft skills or feats, and shouldn't bother casting item producing spells (such as bless water) unless that item is to be used immediately. However, why would NPCs be capable of creating items that persist from game to game if PCs can't? I mean from the sounds of the rule, everyone should begin every game session entirely naked in a world devoid of buildings or crafted materials of any sort. (Well at least from your interpretation of the rule, reading the rule, there is no reason why holy water should revert to natural water, there is no duration on the spell because it isn't an effect, it is a result, Water + Silver Powder + Magic = Holy Water) Even if we don't take it to such an extreme as this, it really means a character shouldn't retain any equipment gained during any gaming session, which means that by the time you reach lvl 20 (assuming you manage to survive to this level with inferior equipment) you'll still be wielding your base equipment. One of you said that a magic item is not the result of a spell, you sir are wrong, every magic item contains in its description a spell or spells that must be cast during its creation, excepting the raw enhancement bonus to armor and weapons, thus every magic item is the product of a spell. And why can only alchemists craft potions? Everyone has access to the craft (alchemy) skill and the Brew Potion feat. That is like saying that because I decide to cook at home, but because I am not a chef, the food I cook does not persist in my stomach after eaten or revert to its raw form, and therefore I will starve to death or die from food poisoning, which is ridiculous.
Taking an example from earlier in this thread, according to your interpretation of this rule, Masterwork Transformation loses its effect at the end of a session. What does this mean exactly? Does this mean the player's item reverts to being mundane and the money they spent returns to their pockets, or does this mean their money simply goes poof. If the money goes poof, why should a player be penalized for wanting to improve their weapon?
Of course this only makes one aspect of Pathfinder Society even worse, I hear that those quests they send you on for prestige often involve crafting, which means players who want prestige will need to invest in crafting skills even though, apparently, those crafting skills can have no real in-game effect (since by the time an item is crafted, it will most likely be the end of the session)
I get that Pathfinder Society wants to prevent any exploits like the one the op of this thread was attempting, but at a certain point it just gets ridiculous, can't there simply be a rule for GMs to stomp down on infinite money exploits such as this one? That would make it easier for Paizo, as they wouldn't have to search their rules for all the possible exploits and they wouldn't be stealing fun from the players.
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The crafting spells and feats are mostly banned for the campaign. It's an organized play restriction, to help make the game experience more consistent. The rules discussed here are in the free download Pathfinder Society Guide to Organized Play which contains the House Rules for this campaign.
Many campaigns have House Rules.
I had a build planned for CC that used the OPs combination. It was water witch 1/alchemist X. I thought having a reliable supply of holy water and an option to use it might be nice in an anti undead AP.
But as our GM was fairly inexperienced and seemed wary to allow "complex" builds I dropped the idea.
I still can't see it as exploit. Unless, perhaps, I you try to make money by selling the stuff. But then you could try to make money by casting CLW on people.
Consistent eh? what about the rule that requires you to have a chronicle to play a non-standard race? Chronicles only given out at conventions as ambiguous rewards, and quite frankly there is only one convention in my area that is large enough that pathfinder society would consider sending chronicles to, well maybe another one now, but only because it explicitly uses the phrase "Comic-con" in its title, getting hype it doesn't deserve by using the universally recognized name. Even if I managed to receive one of these chronicles at a convention, the Chronicle received would be completely random and would still not likely reflect the type of characters I enjoy playing. And in order to receive said Chronicle I would either have to play a character that I don't like, because I don't have access to the options I want, or I would have to GM, while chafing under rules that make game-play contrived. The whole point of Pathfinder is to make an open-ended world where anything can happen, putting it in a box and streamlining the process turns the whole thing into a budget-cut, rushed-release video game; which is something I could rent from a Redbox and return the next day if I really wanted it.
If the rules went something like, Core Rulebook only or Core Rulebook + APG + Ultimate guides that would be bearable, at least everyone would be playing with the same rule set, and the books wouldn't be nitpicked apart until there's nothing left. But turning around and saying that because someone was lucky enough to be present and chosen to receive a chronicle at this convention, they get to play this race or class that nobody else can is just ridiculous. As far as House-rules go, in most homebrew campaigns, house-rules arise to cover ambiguous or poorly worded game mechanics in most cases, or to replace a game mechanic the GM doesn't like with a mechanic they do like, or sometimes, GMs will white-list or blacklist source books explicitly in their campaigns. Most mechanic changes are broad and far reaching, such as my current GM has disallowed firearms and anything that relies on gunpowder in his campaign, something that even the source books recommend a player discusses with his/her GM prior to using. But just glancing into the rules for organized play, it seems they cherry-pick feats, spells, races, and classes though the entire gambit of books. In order to even create a Pathfinder Society eligible character, I would have to double check, triple check, and quadruple check the source books and this Pathfinder Society guide, to make sure I'm not trampling the rule laid out in the fine text of Ordinance Fun-Suck, Section C, sub-paragraph VIII. (or at least that is what it would feel like) it would also prevent the use of character creation aids such as PC-gen because they do not cherry-pick the rules.
Getting back to this specific rule, even if crafting is house-ruled out (which allows players to focus more on combat and advancing the story) and all spell effects end at the end of each scenario (which often makes sense, but not always) It still makes no sense that the Holy water created via Bless water reverts to mundane water or that the Masterwork item created via Masterwork Transformation should revert to a mundane item. Both of these spells are instantaneous cast spells, and neither of them require complex calculations or selecting from a wide-variety of options. Neither of these spells hold-up game-play in either real-time or game-time. They more-or-less accomplish the same results in the same time frame that an exchange with an NPC would take. In fact, it is even less of a holdup on game-play to cast these spells than it is to deal with NPC purchases. You avoid the diplomacy check to gather information to find an npc with the wares you want, you avoid the diplomacy check to barter away the old gear (in the case of Masterwork Transformation) and you avoid the diplomacy check to barter for the new gear (in the case of holy water, silver powder is much easier to find and more or less has a fixed price, in a pinch a PC could grind up 250 SP into dust with a mortar and pestle). In game-time this amounts to a few hours saved traveling around and talking with people, in real-time this saves about 15 minutes of the GM's time. You may say that the rules still allow these options within the scenario and the player can most definitely save the GM some time and hassle, but why would the player want to spend money for something that is just going to disappear at the end of the session?
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False Focus works on any spell, not just arcane. The only time it mentions arcane is in the example.
False Focus
You can use a divine focus to cast arcane spells.Prerequisites: Knowledge (religion) 1 rank, ability to cast arcane spells.
Benefit: By using a divine focus as part of casting, you can cast any spell with a material component costing the value of that divine focus (maximum 100 gp) or less without needing that component. For example, if you use a silver holy symbol worth 25 gp, you do not have to provide material components for an arcane spell if its components are worth 25 gp or less. The casting of the spell still provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. If the spell requires a material component that costs more than the value of the divine focus, you must have the material component on hand to cast the spell, as normal.
Normal: A divine focus has no effect when used as a component in arcane spells.