Water Breathing Dispelled while character is underwater, drowning or drowned?

[frankthedm]

When Water Breathing is Dispelled while character is underwater, are they drowning or just plain drowned?

The character obviously isn't holding their breath since the water they were breathing just became unbreathable, but just how screwed is the character in question?

Drowning
Any character can hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to twice her Constitution score. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check every round in order to continue holding her breath. Each round, the DC increases by 1. See also: Swim skill description.

When the character finally fails her Constitution check, she begins to drown. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hp). In the following round, she drops to -1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she drowns.

It is possible to drown in substances other than water, such as sand, quicksand, fine dust, and silos full of grain.

 

[Crothian]

I'd be nice an allow them to realize the spell is dispelled and then the character can start holding his breath.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

If flat footed/surprised, then drowned. If aware, then holding breath. That'd be my DM ruling.

RAW is unclear I think.

 

[Vegepygmy]

The character obviously isn't holding their breath since the water they were breathing just became unbreathable...

Oh, I disagree!

A character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution.

So your water breathing gets dispelled, and suddenly you have no air to breathe. Now you can hold your breath.

 

[Rampant]

Quik sand is mostly water and sand, so yeah it's more unpleasant but you can drown in it.

Sufficiently fine particulate is a lot more like a liquid than course, but it would be more of a choking thing, plus possible slashing damage to your innards.

As for grain you wouldn't so much drown as suffocate from lack of oxygen under the grain. Assuming of course no one lights anything on fire and blows the whole place sky high.

 

[frankthedm]

So your water breathing gets dispelled, and suddenly you have no air to breathe. Now you can hold your breath.

What breath? The character has its lung filled with water. The dispel magic did not refill the character's lungs with air.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The character has its lung filled with water.

Citation, please.

 

[Rampant]

Water breathing allows you to breathe water, as such you are not assumed to be holding your breath when using it. So unless the player is warned, or something, they have a breathing apparatus full of water.

 

[Vegepygmy]

What breath?

The same breath you can hold when you have no air to breathe. Where did that breath come from?

The rules seem to assume that you can hold your last breath, wherever it came from (which, as someone who has had his air unexpectedly run out while scuba diving 80 feet down, I can tell you makes a lot more sense than instantly drowning).

The character has its lung filled with water.

You are simultaneously reading the spell too literally and making stuff up.

The dispel magic did not refill the character's lungs with air.

Let's pretend for just a second that the subject of a water breathing spell literally takes water into his lungs. The spell's duration expires normally. Does he die? He must! His lungs are filled with water, and nowhere does the spell description say that it removes any breathed-in water when it ends! Oh, calamity!

Look, if you want to interpret water breathing in such a way that it becomes a death trap, I can't stop you. But it seems obvious to me that that's not the intent, and it certainly isn't mandated by even an excessively literal reading of the RAW (as I showed with the DMG quote). So why not just interpret it in a reasonable way? The spell allows you to breathe water (as if it were air); if the spell suddenly ends, you can hold your breath (just as if you'd been breathing air).

 

[Rampant]

Look the rules are very clear on what happens if you are underwater and not holding your breath. If you wanna not die under water be sure to start holding your breath when the timer on water breathing is about to run down, or people start throwing dispels around.