ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

bubbles restore like 20 air per turn. in 5 turns you are ready to go (unless you have 2 azure rings, coral shield, and are a yeek).
on the surface, you restore 3 air/turn. normally it takes ages to restore air. and if you have the rings, shield, and are a yeek, it takes even more.

is the air on the surface toxic or something?

You're just not that desperate to breathe it in.

Radon26 wrote:is the air on the surface toxic or something?

On the surface, the air is low-pressure.

Deep underground and water, the air is under much higher pressure, so you can inhale it with more efficiency.

(This makes very little sense, but still it makes more sense than dragons.)

not as desperate? I would agree in most cases.
However, I don't think you can get to the first stairs of the underwater ruins, without getting a stop on one of the tiny islands.
Right, you can phase door in... or teleport...
or dreamwalk, gem portal, slimy roots, wrigth-form, pulverise, summon-massive blow combo, torque of psychoportation...

I'd agree that on the surface it should be higher. Just crank it up to 20/turn everywhere there's air. It'll make the air bar vanish faster and be less annoying, and it's not really making the game any easier or harder.

That or make resting consider your air bar when it's not full. It's kinda annoying to step out of Murgol's Lair, rest, and then manually skip twenty turns because I still need more air.

Well, since in 1.3 resting now waits for air to replenish, this is going to be less of an issue.

"It'll be here in 1.3."

Welp, time to get out the tear mug again. At this point, I'm pretty sure the Second Coming of Christ wouldn't mean as much to me as 1.3 arriving. (Helps that I'm not Christain.)