Kineticist Burn & Searing Flesh Defense Talent

[Rapajya]

When I first read the Searing Flesh defensive talent for pyrokineticists, I thought about taking burn to front-load my defense. It says I can accept burn, but mechanically, how would I go about accepting burn for an already activated talent?

Searing Flesh:

Defense (Su): Your body becomes painfully hot. Whenever a creature hits you with a natural attack or an unarmed strike, that creature takes 1 point of fire damage per 4 kineticist levels you possess (minimum 1 point of fire damage). A creature in a grapple with you takes double this amount of damage at the end of each of its turns. Weapons that strike you also take this damage, though the damage is unlikely to penetrate the weapon’s hardness. By accepting 1 point of burn, you can increase this damage by 1 point per 4 kineticist levels you possess until the next time your burn is removed. You can increase the damage in this way up to seven times. Whenever you accept burn while using a fire wild talent, the surging flame causes your searing flesh to deal double its current amount of damage for 1 round (a creature in a grapple with you takes a total of four times as much damage as normal). You can dismiss or restore this effect as an immediate action.

Is buffing the damage a Free Action? A Standard Action? Is there any restriction on when this can be done?

Furthermore, if the specified Immediate Action is taken to temporarily dismiss Searing Flesh, when another Immediate is taken to resume the power, does the increased damage remain if Burn hasn't been dismissed by resting?

Here's how my GM ruled when I asked what type of Action to use:

• Accepting Burn to increase the damage dealt by Searing Flesh is a Free Action that may only be taken in response to being struck in melee, thus preventing front-loading of the defensive talent.
• Furthermore, if I temporarily suspend the defense, when I reinstate it, I lose all increase that I've purchased, even if I haven't rested to reset Burn to 0, thus overruling the bold text in the talent description.

Combined, these limitations effective nerf the talent.

[Protoman]

Combined or individually those rulings definitely nerd the talent, and all elemental defender talents. It's a good thing they're incorrect.

You can put more burn on it whenever you turn it on, just like any other of elemental defence talents, or even as a reaction to an attack when it's already on, so both are immediate action. And you're meant to be able to front-load your defensive talents so that kineticists can take advantage of elemental overflow right at the start of the day if they want to.

When you dismiss it and then restore it as immediate action, the burn was still invested into the talent and you haven't recovered from all your burn damage yet, that means searing flesh and the rest of the defensive talents are still increased in effectiveness.

[Chess Pwn]

Just note that accepting burn wont increase it until you're lv4.

[FractalLaw]

Your GM is wrong. Really, really wrong. You can spend burn before combat, usually at the start of your day, to increase your defense talent's effect.

It's a supernatural ability, so unless otherwise noted it's a standard action to do so.

Per the talent, it lasts until you removed your burn.

The defense talents are intended to be a way that you can pre-load burn for elemental overflow.

You can dismiss and restore the effect as an immediate action. There are no qualifications on the restore language, so you get it all back.

[Protoman]

Chess Pwn wrote:

Just note that accepting burn wont increase it until you're lv4.

Huh I didn't notice before that the accepting burn part lacks the "(minimum of 1 fire damage)" text the normal progression of searing flesh does. Well I vote for that to have errata or clarified by Mark or something to explain if burn really wouldn't do anything for it for 3 levels.

[Azten]

I'd rather it be errated to be useful. Even if all that happened was that it hurt people using melee weapons(as written, you can wrap your hand in kerosene soaked paper, use it as an imprivised melee weapon, and nothing happens to you when you hit a Pyrokineticist...)

[Chess Pwn]

Well if it gets a min 1 then it won't increase till lv8.
I can't remember if he's already commented on it or not. I think part of it is they don't want it strong for early levels.

[Rapajya]

Protoman wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

Just note that accepting burn wont increase it until you're lv4.

Huh I didn't notice before that the accepting burn part lacks the "(minimum of 1 fire damage)" text the normal progression of searing flesh does. Well I vote for that to have errata or clarified by Mark or something to explain if burn really wouldn't do anything for it for 3 levels.

Ouch! I'd missed that too. At least it would be useful to take the burn to double up for that 1 round at lower levels.

Fortunately the character is currently Lvl 4, so I don't have to worry about that wording.

Azten wrote:

I'd rather it be errated to be useful. Even if all that happened was that it hurt people using melee weapons(as written, you can wrap your hand in kerosene soaked paper, use it as an imprivised melee weapon, and nothing happens to you when you hit a Pyrokineticist...)

So my fairy godmother (another PC who is a faerie dragon and rescued my character when he was an infant) can take less damage swatting me with a kerosene glove than she would sitting on my shoulder (would be effectively grappling). Funny how that works out.

---

Thanks for the input, everybody. I'll forward this thread to my GM.

[Renkosuke]

This thread seems essentially resolved but I have a few cents of input that I would like to put in regarding the "kerosene-soaked paper" glove example.

The text of Searing Flesh notes that you -may- deal damage to weapons that strike you, just that its unlikely such damage will actually affect the weapon (which is true). I would argue that a kerosene-soaked paper glove would likely be extremely vulnerable to fire damage (obviously) and therefore break and/or catch fire when used as a weapon against Searing Flesh.

A lot of that requires GM input of course.

[kadance]

The most effective way I've figured out to use searing flesh is with Snapping Turtle Clutch. Since creatures in a grapple with you take double damage at the end of their turn, and STC let's you grapple them on their turn if they miss you (which Snapping Turtle Style helps with it's +1 shield bonus). Add in Heatwave or Firesight/Smoke Storm for a flat 20% miss chance.

A Human could have the feats needed by level 5 (Improved Unarmed Strike & Improved Grapple at level 1, Snapping Turtle Style at 3, and Snapping Turtle Clutch at 5). If he was Adopted by halflings and picked up the Intrepid Volunteer trait, he could even grapple using his boosted Dexterity instead of his strength.

[Mouseless]

I just thought accepting burn for this ability meant having taking burn damage from using other abilities, so having used Burning Infusion 4 times without gathering energy would give you 4 burn and 4 more damage on searing flesh on lvl 4 to 7

[Chess Pwn]

You have to spend burn specifically to increase your defense. Just gaining burn doesn't increase your defense for the day.