Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback The patch adjusted the frequency of damage taken from fire surfaces not mentioned in the patch notes

As the thread title says, I've begun to notice that the patch stealth adjusted fire surfaces to only apply their effects once per turn. You either take damage at the start of a turn now, or when moving into a fire surface for the first time that turn. (Leaving and re-entering results in taking damage twice, but my tabletop friends say that is in line with normal DnD 5E rules.)

Jumping out of the fire to avoid taking large amounts of unnecessary damage is no longer needed, and our feedback in regards to surfaces needs to take this into account as this is a major (and welcome) change. Granted, the lack of it in the patch notes makes me wonder if this was an intended change at all, but I have also noted that items like Alchemist Fire do specify that their effects are supposed to apply once per turn.

I speculate that what actually happened pre-patch was that surfaces were always intended to apply their effects once per turn, but fire specifically was bugged to apply the Burning status effect multiple times per turn as you moved through fire surfaces, applying damage each time. Yet I've also noted that it seems burning damage was either turned off entirely, or damage from fire fields and the burning status effect are now combined into one damage number now if a player is under the effects of both at the start of a turn (which makes it slightly easier for casters to maintain concentration).

Maybe someone could do a pre-patch and post-patch comparison?

If that's the case, then well done Larian.

Has anyone noticed if surfaces are requiring saving throws?

I don't imagine that surfaces are going to have saving throws, unless they are generated by very specific spells. They don't have a DC assigned to them so there's no saving throw to use. Individually giving every surface in the game a DC for a saving throw might not really be worth the effort, and might cause a great many things to bug out.

(And let's be real, if saving throws for most surfaces were possible, most enemies would coincidentally succeed the vast majority of the time.)

No, surfaces already had saving throws even before the patch, other than fire. They don't show the roll though and only half the time would the little dice icon pop up over your head. I tested out running across different surfaces multiple times. As for the update, OP is right. Now when you run across a large swathe of flame, you only take damage the one time.

Edit: Oh and acid didn't have a saving throw, but it doesn't persist after you leave the surface. You only get the -2 AC penalty while standing in. Run over it and you'll be fine

At first, it didn't seem right to me that running over 10 meters of fire posed the same danger as just touching the surface. Now I think, once you've caught on fire, you can't get any more on fire. So it fits immersion and balance pretty well.

Oh yeah, I had meant damaging surfaces, but yeah you're right. Status effect surfaces would have saving throws attached to them.