How does Holy Water interact with incorporeal creatures damage wise, under holy water it doesn't say it deals half damage or full damage nor does it answer this under the incorporeal type outside of saying "Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead."
It feels to me like it ought to do full damage, but since it is a corporeal source (and is not channel energy), by RAW it's halved.
How does Holy Water interact with incorporeal creatures damage wise, under holy water it doesn't say it deals half damage or full damage nor does it answer this under the incorporeal type outside of saying "Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead."
Thanks to this sentence, it seems that holy water ought to do full damage to uncorcporeal undead. The trick is how you deliver it. You can't just throw a vial, since there's nothing it would break on, unless there is a hard object in the uncorporeal undead's space. I suppose you could unstopped the vial and shake it at an adjacent square.
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Holy Water needs some way to "hit" the creature, either by using the sprinkler from various items that denote that use (they exist) or busting the vial while it is inside the creature. I would think the normal positive energy rules would still apply and it would do full damage when the water effects the target.
The main problem is that most vials of Holy Water will simply go through the creature and hit the wall 10 feet away, leaving the creature uneffected by the item's (vial) contents. (though the wall is now wet)
Mundane items don't affect incorporeal creatures at all, for example: A flask of Alchemist's Fire thrown next to a ghost will do nothing to the ghost.
Magical attacks (spells/magical-weapons/etc) do affect incorporeal creatures, but unless they come from an incorporeal source they still only deal half damage, eg: A fireball cast next to a ghost will deal half damage to the ghost.
If you want to deal full damage to an incorporeal creature you have to become incorporeal yourself (or use a ghost-touch weapon, which counts as incorporeal), cause the creature to become corporeal (ghostbane durge/etc), or use a force-effect (force effects deal full damage to incorporeal creatures).
So the quoted text ("Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead.") Really puts this in the second catagory - half damage to incorporeal undead. Without this text Holy Water would be a mundane item that cannot affect incorporeal creatures at all. The text references magic attacks, which still follow the rule that they do half damage unless they come from an incorporeal source.
If you think full damage fits the flavour better then by all means change it (I can see that) but unless there's relevant text somewhere else that seems to be the rule.
EDIT: thaX made reference to Positive Energy dealing full damage to incorporeal undead. I can't find anything about that (I lokked at Channel Energy and Cure Light Wounds), but if there is a rule about that it could change my mind.
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Um, if that vial is effectively immaterial to the creature, how is it do you think it somehow prevents its contents from contacting the creature? All it really does is keep the contents in a fixed shape, when contacting the incorporeal creature. Realistically, an unbroken vial can be used as a club as long as it doesn't hit anything solid and breaks, whether the contents degrade with doing damage is a GM call I guess.
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umm.
if look at incorporeal mosnter ablity. it clearly state that holy water effect undead incorporeal creatures:
" Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. "
also note it is in the same section as both force damage and magical damage. (and mundain attacks). starting with mundain doing nothing to magical doing half to holy water being 'effective'(no explanation if half or normal) and force doing normal. id say if they meant holy water deal half they would say. 'altough not magical it deal half damage as magical attacks'. saying it effect without any more delving into it mean it effect as stated under holy water which is 2d4 to undead\evil outsiders.
@MrCharisma, about positive energy : in the same rule seection it mantion chanel enregy to effect incorporeal creatures (not talking about specific positive energy. nor spells, only channel, positive AND negative):
"Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature (except for channel energy)"
as for applying holy water ,in the holy water equipment information it say :
"A flask breaks if thrown against the body of a corporeal creature, but to use it against an incorporeal creature, you must open the flask and pour the holy water out onto the target. Thus, you can douse an incorporeal creature with holy water only if you are adjacent to it. Doing so is a ranged touch attack that does not provoke attacks of opportunity."
@zza ni, thanks for that, channel question answered perfectly.
Regarding Holy Water, the section reads like this (from "zza ni"s link).
An incorporeal creature has no physical body. It can be harmed only by other incorporeal creatures, magic weapons or creatures that strike as magic weapons, spells, spell-like abilities, or supernatural abilities. It is immune to all nonmagical attack forms. Even when hit by spells or magic weapons, it takes only half damage from a corporeal source. Although it is not a magical attack, holy water can affect incorporeal undead. Corporeal spells and effects that do not cause damage only have a 50% chance of affecting an incorporeal creature (except for channel energy). Force spells and effects, such as from a magic missile, affect an incorporeal creature normally.
For me this indicates that it's only half damage to incorporeal creatures. They list all the effects that can affect incorporeal creatures, then say how that works, THEN talk about force damage. If Holy Water was meant to deal full damage it would have been included in the sentence with force effects, or at least placed later in the paragraph after they had finished talking about 50% effective strategies.
This is obviously not clear enough to have consensus, so it's probably worth talking about it with you GM.
as i said above. they bothered to explain that magic attacks deal half damage. then there is a dot ("." - new sentence) where holy water just say it effect them, then there is another dot ("." - new sentence) where they talk about how non energy channel effect that deal no damage is 50% effective (and this is important !!) then more dot ("." - new sentence) and talk about force dealing damage normaly.
now if they wanted to say that holy water is 50% effective like magic. why didn't they said so like in the non damaging coporeal spells and effects?.
as far as i can see even though the holy water mention the magic rule effect, it doesn't say 'and work like magic effect'. or 'and deal 50% damage' like in magic and corporeal effects. they were very clear when such things are 50% or not (like in force) without them saying it is 50% you only have what they do say. "can effect incorporeal undead" - which should lead you back to holy water rules and how it effect on undead.
Um, if that vial is effectively immaterial to the creature, how is it do you think it somehow prevents its contents from contacting the creature? All it really does is keep the contents in a fixed shape, when contacting the incorporeal creature. Realistically, an unbroken vial can be used as a club as long as it doesn't hit anything solid and breaks, whether the contents degrade with doing damage is a GM call I guess.
This.
The trick is how you deliver it. You can't just throw a vial, since there's nothing it would break on, unless there is a hard object in the uncorporeal undead's space. I suppose you could unstopped the vial and shake it at an adjacent square.
There is a magical holy water dispenser. Annoyingly the non-magical version of this weapon is ineffective to the point of not being worth it. Though it does specifically call out it's interaction with incorporeal undead.