Surfaces can be a fun and interesting feature to interact and expiriment with, but as of now the way surfaces work (or rather don't work) is pushing people to entirely avoid utilizing surfaces, rather than dealing with the complete and utter inconsistent mess that they bring.
This first came to light when I was testing how the spell "Stinking cloud" worked. First off, the combat log shows the DC of the spell as "8+3+3=13"... which is errr, not correct. The question is wether this is merely visual, or the DC on the spell is in fact 1 lower than it should be. Second part is this: When a creature is suffering from Nausea, and starts up a new turn inside the cloud, if they fail the saving throw, they will sometimes not get the nausea re-applied, and will in fact lose the condition, despite failing the saving throw. Video evidence is provided here:
Next up is Acid surface. Most of the time with placing an acid surface under an enemy, you would expect an enemy that is now standing on the surface to get a -2 to AC as the surface tooltip is describing. This rarely happens. Mostly, the enemy will simply chill in the surface, never actually getting the debuff. There is no combat log saving throw to figure up if this is intended (cant imagine it would be, as it would completely nullify the surface potential usefulness), Acid surface seems to be working on you though. It should be the most simple one to fix. Is the creature standing in an acid surface? Then apply acid debuff. It isn't stated anywhere if there is a DC or saving throw for the surfaces. If there is, at the very least, the combat log does not give any indication that it exists.
Poison is next. Please watch the video for a full report.
Finally comes electricity, which is the worst of the bunch, it seems to almost always ignore enemies unless actual movement is taken inside the surface, and even then it is spotty in its application. Video evidence here.
Hopefully this thread will get you to look into the atrocity on my brain cells that is surfaces. I like playing with the thought that surfaces can be shaped into something that i can use in combat, but as of now, spells that create surfaces are mostly useless as it is only a detriment to me and enemies will simply ignore the application turn > jump out next turn, without ever getting affected. considering how small the damage of a surface is anyways, it's not worth the turn/spellslot to even put the surface down. Ever. What a shame.
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I was hoping they would have fixed these by now. It's been one and a half years and still nothing on this problem.
I sent them detailed reports after every major patch and they still haven't fixed the surfaces interactions, the consistency of when they proc, incorrect Spell DC checks and so on.
Sad to see this part of the game not get fixed. If the surfaces are not going to work as intended then why bother with them at all?
