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Do Kineticists receive their burn before or after making their Kinetic Blast.
I ask because the Elemental Overflow class feature changes certain things (one such being attack bonus on the Kinetic Blast) depending on how much burn the Kineticist currently has.
I would argue before the attack. Looking at gather power you pull the energy in before you release it so it follows that you would take the energy "burn" before you release it.
It could be argued however that the act of sending too much energy through your body causes the burn and it would therfore be burned afterward.
I would go with the first one it would look cooler if nothing else.
I've been getting a few opinions with no real census or evidence from any sort of rules or similar interactions in the game. Anyone have anything solid?
If it doesn't say either before or after, it's during.
I'm not sure the specific examples you're thinking of where it matters, and I just woke up, so the best real-life example I can think of involves psionic focus.
In the psionic ruleset (3.5e and Dreamscarred), there's a concept of focus. A character is either focused, or not. There are a number of abilities that are fueled by expending psionic focus. For instance, the Psionic Weapon feat allows you to deal 1 extra damage with weapons while you are focused. It also allows you to expend psionic focus as part of an attack to instead deal 2d6 extra damage. Well, what if you have multiple feats that depend on focus? If you make an attack and expend focus on that attack, does focus go away before, or after the attack? Again, I'd say during. Say your attack provoked an AoO and you had a feat that increased your armor class while focused. I'd argue that because your attack is still in progress, your focus is in the process of being expended, so your AC is still increased.
Basically, you get the benefit of expending - and not expending - the focus during its activation.
I'd do the same for burn. I recognize this is still just opinion, but I don't think there's a specific statement because... if it doesn't say before or after, it's during, by definition.
I'm not sure the specific examples you're thinking of where it matters...
Thank you for your response, I appreciate it being based in other rules.
To answer this question the Kineticist class has a feature called Elemental Overflow that states:
"...she receives a bonus on her attack rolls with kinetic blasts equal to the total number of points of burn she currently has...She also receives a bonus on damage rolls with her kinetic blast equal to double the bonus on attack rolls...whenever she has at least 3 points of burn, the kineticist gains a +2 size bonus to two physical ability scores of her choice. She also gains a chance to ignore the effects of a critical hit or sneak attack equal to 5% × her current number of points of burn. At 11th level, whenever the kineticist has at least 5 points of burn, these bonuses increase to a +4 size bonus to one physical ability score of her choice and a +2 size bonus to each of her other two physical ability scores."
You'd think with all these features depending on how much burn you have it would make it clear when you actually receive it.
Another thing that would make knowing when I received burn crucial is that each point of burn gives me non-lethal damage equal to my character level. So if receiving burn would give me enough non-lethal damage to make me unconscious:
If I get the burn before completing the action that gives burn then I fall unconscious before completing the action and the action doesn't go off.
If I get the burn after doing the action that gives burn then I fall unconscious after completing the action and the action does go off.
And it's not just attacking, many Kineticist class features give you burn.
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While it's not helpful for this specific question, the better answer for elemental overflow is:
Take enough burn first thing in the morning to get your element fully overflowing. Depending on what element you have, that's usually done by pumping up your elemental defense.
Now, as to the specifics, I would argue that it happens during as well. This means that, in the case of taking burn to the point of losing consciousness, you would fall unconscious after the action; you'd get your shot.
If I get the burn before completing the action that gives burn then I fall unconscious before completing the action and the action doesn't go off.
If I get the burn after doing the action that gives burn then I fall unconscious after completing the action and the action does go off.
Right. All of which - I think - supports the unwritten idea of "during". As in, your attack gets completed and you pass out. It's closer to "after" than "before", but still neither.
Meaning... if you take the burn for that attack, you get the benefits of taking that burn during the attack, and suffer the consequences when it's complete.
Specific to burn, it can't be "after", realistically, else any of the abilities that say "when you take X burn, you get Y" would make no sense. You'd get Y a round later, once the burn "takes".
So again, I'd go with "during", which isn't exactly written, but fits the idea of simultaneity, where you taking the burn, benefitting from the burn, and suffering from the consequences of the burn ALL happen.
Based on this passage from the 'burn' ability, I would rule that the burn happens before you can manifest the additional effect.
" Some of her wild talents allow her to accept burn in exchange for a greater effect, while others require her to accept a certain amount of burn to use that talent at all"
If you are accepting burn in exchange for something, you have to get the burn before you get the something.
Second part of sentence implies burn happen first as well.
In the metakenisis ability it says:
"By accepting 1 point of burn, she can empower her kinetic blast"
Again, that implies to me that the burn happens first.
It's not 100% clear , I agree. But I'd rule that burn happens before you get an effect in my game. So you could knock yourself unconscious before even getting off a blast, or in a different scenario you could get your overflow bonuses before a blast if you met the threshold.
So you could knock yourself unconscious before even getting off a blast
I hear you, but my corollary to that is the rules say you get something by accepting the burn, you get something. Knocking yourself unconscious without getting the blast off doesn't get you the something.
The key - I think - is that accepting burn isn't an action. It's part of another action, and that action should complete. Even in the case of a barbarian's rage, invoking rage is a free action, so it could be reasonable to imagine a scenario where raging knocks a barbarian out of a fight, negating his ability to take further actions. Similarly it's easy to adjudicate that all his subsequent actions for the round get his rage bonuses because he's taken the free action. But burn... just happens during some other action.
Not arguing... just debating.
From flavor perspective, I'd go for 'after'. You do an attack and it strains you more with every second you are doing it. So at the end the strain gets to its maximum, resulting in x burn.
Of course, you could imagine it in very different ways.