Is Burn damage optional?

[Winterwalker]

In the writing for Burn, the ability states a few blurbs about the fact burn can (and presumably cannot) be accepted. ala this line:

"Some of her wild talents offer her the option to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect. For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist suffers one point of nonlethal damage per character level."

So my assumption is that they can choose to not accept the burn if they don't want the increased effects. So I'm scratching my head as a lot of these talents don't have an increased effect for burn.

One example I grabbed at random is Spray. It has no wording that the burn aspect will increase any effects on this ability, so why would I pay the Burn 3 cost for this?

(I'm ignoring the ability feel the burn here, as that's the only reason I see to accept burn damage right now.)

Now the other ability I'm looking at then would be Kinetic Healer. It has a burn cost of 1, but again no additional increase for accepting burn (so why would I ever do so?) and even if it did have an increased effect for accepting burn, if I wanted to heal unlimited times per day it appears I could use a move action to gather energy and negate the "optional" burn damage anyway.

I must be missing something here. Is the burn damage listed on these abilities optional or mandatory? If mandatory, which I don't seem to think it is, would Kinetic Healers still be able to spend a move action so use Kinetic Healing for no burn cost, and theoretically have unlimited healing?

Spray:

SPRAY
Element water; Type form infusion; Level 6; Burn 3
Prerequisites kineticist level 10th
Associated Blasts charged water, water
Saving Throw Reflex half

Instead of focusing at a single target, you diffuse your kinetic blast to spray forward in all directions. All creatures and objects in a 30-foot cone suffer half your blast damage. The saving throw DC is Dexterity-based.

Kinetic Healer:

KINETIC HEALER
Element aether or water; Type Sp; Level 1; Burn 1; see text
Prerequisites kineticist level 1st
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes

With a touch, you can heal a willing living creature for an amount
equal to your kinetic blast’s damage. Instead of paying the burn
cost, you can cause the recipient to take 1 point of burn. If
you choose to do so, the recipient suffers 1 point of nonlethal
damage per Hit Die he possesses that cannot be recovered by
any means until he takes a full night’s rest.

*I read that it states this move action to gather energy will only apply to blasts. But is burn going to get re-worded? It still seems optional.

[mplindustries]

Burn is sometimes optional. For example, every element's defense has an option to spend burn and boost it. Slick normally costs no burn, but you can take one to extend the duration. Kinetic Form normally costs nothing but you can take burn to boost the effect.

If a talent has a Burn cost, though, such as Spray, the cost is mandatory in order to use the ability.

And as per post #1 of the stickied kineticist discussion, the move action can only reduce the burn cost of blasts, not other powers like kinetic healing.

[Winterwalker]

Can you point me to where it says it IS mandatory? The way I'm reading this is there seems to be lots of grey area. Maybe I missed it.

[Excaliburproxy]

Winterwalker wrote:

In the writing for Burn, the ability states a few blurbs about the fact burn can (and presumably cannot) be accepted. ala this line:

"Some of her wild talents offer her the option to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect. For each point of burn she accepts, a kineticist suffers one point of nonlethal damage per character level."

So my assumption is that they can choose to not accept the burn if they don't want the increased effects. So I'm scratching my head as a lot of these talents don't have an increased effect for burn.

One example I grabbed at random is Spray. It has no wording that the burn aspect will increase any effects on this ability, so why would I pay the Burn 3 cost for this?

(I'm ignoring the ability feel the burn here, as that's the only reason I see to accept burn damage right now.)

Now the other ability I'm looking at then would be Kinetic Healer. It has a burn cost of 1, but again no additional increase for accepting burn (so why would I ever do so?) and even if it did have an increased effect for accepting burn, if I wanted to heal unlimited times per day it appears I could use a move action to gather energy and negate the "optional" burn damage anyway.

I must be missing something here. Is the burn damage listed on these abilities optional or mandatory? If mandatory, which I don't seem to think it is, would Kinetic Healers still be able to spend a move action so use Kinetic Healing for no burn cost, and theoretically have unlimited healing?

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

I asked the same question about kinetic healing. The move action only mitigates the burn from blasts (which is a clarification in the main kineticist thread). Kinetic healing is not a blast.

And you have to take or mitigate (whether partially or fully) 3 burn in order to use spray at all.

Humorously, I think you are right about the exact wording, though. There is no explicit rule that you need to pay the burn cost in order to use a wild talent.

I assure you, that is merely an error. You need to pay the burn cost of a wild talent in order to use it.

[Zwordsman]

There isn't really a mandoatory line outside of stuff like healing and k-heal.

For the wyld talents it's semi obvious. There is a burn cost and an effect. there isn't any sort of listing saying "this is what you get without burn" or "this extra is what you get for burn". In the section that breaks down wyld talents it says the burn is the cost of the wyld talents that it's assosciated with.

you can always chose to not apply said benefit and not recieve burn but then you've got just a normal blast and not modified

[kestral287]

The basic Kinetic Blasts that you get-- Cold Blast, Air Blast, whatever-- are Wild Talents and are labeled as such.

Your "option to accept burn" is to use the various Form and Substance Infusions with those talents (in most cases, there are a few non-Form/Substance with optional Burn).

It's poorly written, and that's been noted a few times, but that's what it is. You don't have to accept Burn... but you can't use any talent with a Burn requirement if you don't.