Does monk's Elemental Attunement require ki point to activate?

Question

Quick question about monk's Elemental Attunement. Under the "Disciple of the Elements" on page 80:

A discipline requires you to spend ki points each time you use it.

However, there's no ki points mentioned under Elemental Attunement, whereas all other disciplines contain the amount of ki you need to spend to activate it.

So is this discipline treated like cantrips such as prestidigitation where you can cast it as many time as you want for free? Or does it require ki points to snuff out a candle, and if so how many key points per activation?

Answer 1

You are right, the RAW are contradictory in generally describing Elemental Disciplines as costing Ki and specifically the Elemental Attunement discipline not detailing any Ki cost. The following arguments apply:

1. A specific ability's description overrides a general description (though the risk here is that it can be a mistake) and the specific description here mentions no Ki cost where all the other discipline descriptions do;
2. The clear intent and power of the discipline is, as you have assumed, to give the monk the equivalent of the Prestidigitation, Druid-craft or Thaumaturgy cantrips;

These make it clear, in my opinion, that the Elemental Attunement discipline costs no Ki to cast.

It would have been better if the description had said something like "This costs no Ki to cast and is the equivalent power of a cantrip for other spellcasting classes" to make it clear.