A bit confused about making surfaces except smoke and fire permanent. Does this mean they'll stick around even after combat?
Yes, apparently forever.
I left an Ice surface fighting Dallis at level 5. Went back at level 7, it was still there, Walt slipped over on it and the whole camp turned aggro.
What needs to happen is for the town NPCs to be able to realize if they are being attacked or if they were just clumsy and walked into a surface to cause damage. This is probably a hard problem for the larians to resolve. Though ice and fire surfaces shouldn't last more then a minute outside of combat.
The idea is dumb in so many ways. This is just an example - it is similar to using ricochet and hitting someone uninvolved except this is hours later.
Ice should melt, fires burn out, clouds blow away.
It also (during a fight) makes it too easy to box people into a corner and your enemies just sit there doing nothing.
