I also know if someone is burning and I knock them in a water place it will go out and they go to warm (oops). Also, obviously a typo, my post should have read "not the same with oil and burning enemies"?
If so, it's definitely a bug.
Knocking enemies down into poison works and poisons them. I'll keep trying to test this.
Sounds about equal to Deus Ex; where lockpicking, multitooling and computer gets less useful when the next games you know the keys and codes

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So what? That doesn't mean it's a good design decision.
Wulfram QuestYou can either escort Wulfram or leave him to die. Escorting him is always the best option, because the enemies you fight give you more XP: 550 + 550 + 775 as opposed to 125 + 775 for turning him down. I recommend that you lose the random 125 XP for turning him down and just have that fight feature the same enemies as you would get if you escort him, making the experience equal, and making it more of a personal preference whether you save him or not.
(This seems reasonable enough, but I'm sure someone will fight me to the death over it anyway.)
If you think that agreeing to the escort and winning it should get a higher reward, I have an idea for that as well: If you successfully escort Wulfram, when you find him in the bar, he will identify items of at least Loremaster 1 and Loremaster 2 quality at a 50% discount.
Tada, now you have a unique quest reward which is useful, but not so useful that you feel compelled to do it only that way.