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Sorry if this has been asked before but I was rereading through the kineticist class features when I noticed some weird wording.
... Gathering power in this way allows the kineticist to reduce the total burn cost of a blast wild talent she uses in the same round by 1 point. The kineticist can instead gather power for 1 full round in order to reduce the total burn cost of a blast wild talent used on her next turn by 2 points (to a minimum of 0 points). If she does so, she can also gather power as a move action during her next turn to reduce the burn cost by a total of 3 points.
Similar wording is used in Supercharge:
At 11th level, when using gather power as a move action, a kineticist can reduce the total burn cost of a single wild talent by 2 points instead of 1. When using gather power for 1 full round, she can reduce the burn cost of a single wild talent by 3 points instead of 2.
Notice the bold wording
My impression has always been you total up the total burn cost of everything you use then subtract the amount Gather Power/Supercharge gives you, so an 11th level kineticist can use, say, an Empowered, Maximized Wall blast (normally 6 burn), take 2 away from infusion specialization, 2 from Supercharge (GP as a move action only), and either take two burn or use internal buffer to mitigate that. BUT if Supercharge only applies to wild talents rather than Metakinesis as well, the total burn cost would be 4 because Empower and Maximize wouldn't be affected.
Now, Gather Power should work just fine with metakinesis because you're reducing the burn of the blast you use but that's not the same as what Supercharge says if I'm reading it correctly. So what is the case with Supercharge? Is it meant to simply increase the effectiveness of Gather Power or does it apply to a single wild talent that is tacked on to a blast. If the latter, does Metakinesis count as a wild talent for that purpose?
Yes that works. You can use gather power and its supercharge version to reduce the cost of metakinesis.
Yes that works. You can use gather power and its supercharge version to reduce the cost of metakinesis.
The reason it works is because Metakinesis increases the Burn cost of the Blast rather than being a separate additional cost by itself. It is not any type of Wild Talent, but it doesn't need to be.