I want to make it so if the playable object touches boiling water, hot coals, etc, it gets thrown back to the last position progressively to the ground. This would be done via a script which would apply some movement independant of the world gravity and involves the player moving back in an arc to the ground object.
This example can be seen in many older games - Banjo-Tooie does this, which is where the idea comes from in the fire side of Hailfire Peaks in the boiling pool of water.
I assume this movement of throwing the player back onto the ground is possible, but the problem is that with Motion actuators, it will move you anywhere the the xyz on the Loc is set to, this needs to be a set direction to the ground, and also checks if it is a valid ground surface.