Can a character with Craft (Alchemy) craft his own reagents? That is, using the normal Craft rules, create X doses of Y Reagent, which he then uses for his Spontaneous Alchemy later on.
For instance, if Bob wasn't to create some Cold Iron reagent, could he spent 1 gp for materials, do his Craft checks and when complete, have 3 doses of Cold Iron? Or 10 gp for 30 doses or what not.
RAW: No. RAI: No. I remeber someone saying "It's like a baker baking his own flour" about this. Cold Iron isn't an alchemical item, so it wouldn't fall under Craft Alchemy anyways.
And the reagents aren't really craft-ables, they are base products. Ex: You can't craft darkwood, you harvest it.
And I don't see the point, the reagents are supposed to be instead of a gp cost. Creating the reagents them selves, by paying gp, makes it pointless.
If you don't want to have to keep track and manage your invetory with reagents, don't use reagents, use gp.
Except that the statement about them say that "The following reagents are purified from their raw states" i would agree with that statement. But the statement about the reagents seems to say that it does go through some process above and beyond just cutting off some bark, or making some black powder (which I might add, is made by an alchemist, as it is an alchemical substance).
As to a baker who makes his own flour (which is what I figured you meant), well, what is to stop him? He could go to the farmer, buy the grain needed, and powder it himself. Farmers might even do that in their own homes for their wives. They grow the wheat, they mill it, they turn it into flour.
Okay, took me a while to figure out what you were talking about, because the "alchemy manual" book isn't in the PRD, although d20pfsrd has it.
d20pfsrd has a list
The omission of a craft DC for these items seems like the intent is that you can't craft them, and indeed, if you could, that would undermine the whole system, since the point of that system appears to be to give you some flexibility and speed in exchange for greater costs.
Thing is, I totally accept that an alchemist can't "make" silver, presumably. Unless they have a philosopher's stone, and that's mostly for gold anyway. But salt? Black powder? Those are things you ought to be able to craft, maybe.
But I think the basic intent is that "alchemical power components" are specifically designed to be things which you buy, and the balance is tuned around that.
That said, some of the things listed as "alchemical power components" do list a craft DC, and for those, obviously you can craft them.
But then, the question comes. WHO does make the silver. In the descriptions of the reagents, it states they are purified. One does not just take a lump of silver and use it in as a reagent. It is silver that has been processed to the point where it is as close to 100% silver as possible. And who would do that? A person versed in chemistry, or alchemy as it were.
It seems to be a catch 22 there. If the alchemist can't make them, then they cannot be created.
They aren't made. They're collected.
Purifying something isn't some kind of special expensive magical process it's just removing foreign elements from a material.
For example. Purifying Silver would just require someone to melt the silver down and separate the slag from the silver. Just like when making anything else out of metal.
It could be boiling a liquid to evaporate weaker elements.
It could be bathing a sprig of Myrrh in alkali bath to remove foreign elements.
Point is that you're looking a little too much into it. The cost for the materials to process raw reagents and the time needed to do so is negligible. If you want a discount of the reagents go and collect them manually and they're free.
And yet, the processes you are describing are chemical processes, which in the world of Pathfinder, are inherently alchemical in nature. You do not get 'pure' silver by melting, as that process still leaves certain trace elements in the silver to make it more of an alloy, as opposed to pure. Just like the smelting of gold does not get you 24 caret gold (99.96% gold or better) is produced though a process called parting. One of the methods was roasting the ore with salt, for 5 days. Later they started using electrolysis. But again, all this is done with a heavy understanding of chemical make up. I doubt the smelters of gold realized that the yellow stuff they were producing wasn't pure gold until someone told them "you know there is platinum and silver in that, and melting won't separate it, but guess what, i have a method to do it."
I may be looking to much into it, maybe, but I think your not looking into it enough. By the book itself, you cant just walk up to a darkwood tree, ripe off some bark and use it. You cant just pull out a silver or gold coin, and use it, because I doubt that they are what one would consider 'pure' they are sure to be 18K or even 14.
Someone is processing these 'pure' reagents. After all, I also doubt that your just taking black powder form any ol powder horn, and that is one of the reagents.
A smelter does not have the time or inclination to make the gold, silver or other metals he is smelting to be 24 caret (or its equivalent).
Each of those reagents have been processed in some way. Knowledge of alchemy (aka chemistry) is the logical methods used to do this processing.
You're forgetting that there is no point in the history of 3E/Pathfinder where the crafting rules have even pretended to make any sense at all. The crafting rules players see let you make things from materials which cost exactly a third as much. Obviously, the economy in general Does Not Work That Way. You want to make 300gp worth of swords, so you need exactly 100gp worth of iron, which comes from about 33.33gp worth of iron ore, which is probably the result of profession (miner) checks rather than craft checks. But the smelting might actually be profession (miner) too, in which case, there's simply no rules at all about the relative values of the ores and the metal.
The game-balance answer is "The reagents have fixed costs and have no listed craft DC, so you can't craft them. We don't know where they come from."
Trying to make much sense of this gets you quickly into the problem that there is nothing in the game to distinguish between things where the raw materials are worth nearly as much as the thing you're making (gold ingots from raw gold nuggets) and things where the raw materials are nearly worthless (intricate carvings made from driftwood).
Where they come from is the table showing what size settlements you can buy given kinds of gear in. It doesn't really make sense past that and thinking about it too much makes the game less immersive.
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