Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Big problems with elemental surface damage.

If you want to get super-realistic about it, let's look at the amount of time spent on/in the surface/cloud. We can't just use turns straight-up, because you can spend a portion of a turn within the area, and a portion of the turn out; we need fractional turns.

Let's say it's burning ground, and you have 10 AP for the turn. If you use all 10 of that AP on the burning ground, then you should take a full turn's worth of burning ground damage. The same is true if you spent 8 of your 10 AP then passed the 2; you were still in the burning ground for eight eighths of your turn.

Now if you left during the turn, let's say 5AP in and 5AP out, then you should take half that damage. Things get complicated if you spend 5AP in, 3AP out, and 2AP sent to the next turn; you should take 5/8 of a turn of damage, but as you're walking off you only naturally take the half-a-turn damage, so the game would need to add 1/8 when you pass the turn, even though you're off the burning ground already.

Or, instead of having a hyper-complicated, super-realistic system, we could make it so every AP you spend within the damaging area does damage to you. Doing damage on a per-step basis makes absolutely perfect sense. The only thing which doesn't make sense is why attacking or casting on burning ground doesn't hurt you.

TL;DR: Gyson is wrong.