Before I get into my question(s), gonna post the spells here for reference:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/bladeBarrier.html
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/coreRulebook/spells/confusion.html
So here is the gist of what happened in one of my recent games. A confusion spell was cast during an encounter, causing two melee bad guys to fall victim. Shortly after, a blade barrier was put up on top of both of these confused bad guys. After saving throws, they both failed and were engulfed in the blade barrier.
During their turns came the tricky part. One rolled this effect of the confusion:
Do nothing but babble incoherently
While the other rolled this effect:
Deal 1d8 points of damage + Str modifier to self with item in hand
I made the argument some sort of self-preservation would click for the poor confused guards and they would move/stumble/something out of the blade barrier then take the effect of the confusion. Another player made the argument that since the spell states "This spell causes confusion in the targets, making them unable to determine their actions.", they wouldn't have the mental capacity to do this unless the "Act normally" result happens. Although this goes against the RAI that confused creatures have some sort of self-preservation against outside threats with the attack clause, we went down this train of though.
Before we go further down this rabbit hole, which train of thought is RAW correct? Would a confused creature move out of a blade barrier/wall of fire/other hazard without first getting the "Act normally" roll?
On down into this rabbit hole, we now have two guards standing inside a blade barrier, doing very confused things only magic would have them do in this situation. Under most persistent spell effects, we figured they would save or take damage again at the end of their turn if they failed to move out of the area of effect. But the spell only states "Any creature passing through the wall takes 1d6 points of damage per caster level (maximum 15d6), with a Reflex save for half damage.". Here is where our confusion sets in; they aren't passing through the wall again, so RAW they aren't triggering the effect. And if they do trigger the effect again, we have effectively created a double dip on the spell's damage because of the first bad save. One failed save assumes they are stuck in the wall's square, and moving technically passes a wall's boundary. Staying in the wall isn't addressed (although logically you'd take another save against the blades).
So second question: What happens to creature who fails their save against the wall when it is cast on them? Do they stay in it? Or do they get shunted to one side or another?
Third question: If they stay in the wall, what happens on their turn? Do they have to make another save? Or can they finish passing through the wall without ill effects?
Last question: What happens if they have to stay in the wall? Are they subject to save vs damage each round? If so, is it at the beginning or end?
As for the fate of those poor guards, they were cut down into a bloody heap by whirling blades while either babbling incoherently or hitting themselves with their own weapons. May they learn in their next lives to not bring swords to a spell fight.