I would say "please remove surface effects unless the original spell/ability in 5e explicitly states it creates a surface effect." Example: Fireball says it ignites things, Sleet Storm says it freezes the ground, etc.
But even then, Fireball doesn't result in PCs taking a status effect that makes their HP continue to drop, I get the idea but the mechanics of D&D aren't really setup to handle it, PCs have too few HP at the start of a campaign.
