Does anybody know if there's an official ruling on when the Body of the Sun spell from the Spell Compendium deals its damage? Unlike, say, Ring of Blades - which specifically says "at the beginning of your turn and also when you cast the spell" - Body of the Sun has no such clarity. I recently ruled that BotS would function like RoB, and now I've got a player up in arms. She felt that anyone who is ever 5' away from her at any point during her turn if she moves around the battlefield should be subject to the damage, which to me felt like it went against the spirit of how spells of that sort, like RoB, that are worded more clearly are supposed to function. Any thoughts/advice from anyone?
I think, technically, the player has it.* Personally, I would use a spell such as flaming sphere as a guide. The sphere stops if it enters a square with a creature and then does damage to that creature. But as a management tool, spells with ongoing effects deal damage on the player's initiative. I certainly wouldn't rely on the descriptive text of a lot of the later books to be particularly precise (even though it's supposed to be canon). The editing of WotC books significantly degraded over the years, to the point where blatant cut-and-paste errors are not even acknowledged, much less errata'd.
In addition, if you're using Complete Divine (which is where I think it first appeared), you might check he Spell Compendium to see if its description was updated.
* Creatures become subject to the spell when they enter the area and are no longer subject to it when they leave.