Philosopher's stone

The philosopher's stone is a reward object in The Sims 3: Supernatural that allows a Sim to turn portable items into gold ingots as well as allowing the household to summon playable ghosts. However, there is a chance that the Sim will fail in the attempt to turn the object into gold and lose the item permanently, or worse, die by turning into gold. Should a Sim be killed by such an accident, the gold statue may be sold for a hefty sum, and can be named by the Sim killed in the action, should the Sim be revived.

The philosopher's stone can be obtained by completing Alchemic Mastery opportunity chain, which can be received after mastering the alchemy skill. The opportunity chain consists of fetch quests to deliver insects, metals, gems, and harvestables to the science lab. Alternatively, Sims can purchase one from lifetime reward for 40,000 happiness points.

Transmutation looks quite inefficient, as gold ingots produced by an individual action have a value of around §150. This seeming inefficiency is compounded by the risk involved in the transmutation (although one could exploit it by giving the Sim a death flower, reviving the Sim using the philosopher's stone as a playable ghost, using resetSim when you'll notice a Sim is about to be transmuted or giving the Sim doing the transmuting the unlucky trait), though the technique relies on having the ghosts (or the protected Sim) transmute gold in the Sims's lot to get an infinite income of gold statues worth §50,000 (which runs on the assumption that the player has enough conversion materials to cause the accident), sometimes as much as §62,500. This does have some value: things with no value such as old newspapers, potions, seeds, etc. can be turned into gold ingots. In addition, converting things like old newspapers also allows a witch to cast transformation spell on gold ingots, as the original object cannot be transformed in the first place. It can also be used to permanently get rid of an Imaginary Friend that has yet to be turned real by transmuting the doll into a gold ingot. The ghost of a Sim killed by being transmuted will be gold.

Player Notes

 * Using cheap items, like scraps or dirty dishes are better as they're cheap and barely beneficial.
 * If The Sims 3: Ambitions and The Sims 3: Into the Future are installed, a glitch occurs where a gold statue of a Sim killed by the philosopher's stone will turn into an ice goblin statue when taken to the future in the family inventory. If the household is planning to stay permanently in the future, this can be prevented by not using the Philosopher’s Stone in the present until you travel to the future.