Oh I thought you had an in-game balance reason. Yes it isn’t super realistic… but then not a lot is in this game. Encumbrance perk 5 springs to mind. The climbing also is superhuman. Not to mention raising undead and summoning avatars.
I rationalized it as my character can hold their breath and fight with their eyes heroically narrowed. They’re level 60, peak human after all.
When all types of injury to the human body are abstracted into a single hitpoint bar, realism was never an issue to begin with. Now, if the gas effect used the drowning bar rather than doing damage-over-time, I might be more willing to accept the idea that an antidote isn’t helpful.
Honestly the damage over time breathing bar would make a lot more sense for choking gas come to think of it. And all types of injury are abstracted as we have cripple if a leg is injured so far .
I meant more that you had to be in the gas for a time before the damage over time happens. In a sense it would be like you couldn’t hold your breathing any longer and begin to choke to death on the gas.