What happens when you drown aquaman?

[SangoProduction]

You can flood the lungs of a willing, helpless, or fascinated creature by touching it (traditionally by kissing the creature on the lips) as a standard action. If the target cannot breathe water, it cannot hold its breath and immediately begins to drown.
On its turn, the target can attempt a Fortitude save to cough up this water; otherwise it falls unconscious at 0 hit points. On the next round, the target must save again or drop to –1 hit points and be dying; on the third round it must save again or die. Succeeding at any of these Fortitude saves causes the target to cough up the water and no longer be drowning, ending the effect. Activating this fey-blessing costs an additional spell point.

How does this work if the target can breathe water? I mean, most fish don't really have longs to flood. But what about Aquaman? What about aquatic humanoids who can't breathe air....which tends to imply a lack of lungs to flood again, but I didn't see anyone performing an autopsy on the little mermaid to learn their biological reality.
What if the inability to breathe air is magical, or by the influence of an Aboleth's slime?

[the_tick_rules]

Some might say a target that can breathe water would be just fine, maybe inconvenienced or annoyed but fine. some might say the line if a target cannot breathe water it cannot hold it's breath means if it can breathe water it can hold its breath and it could do so in compliance with holding breath rules which I don't know. I guess it depends on how water breathing works. does the magic work some mojo on your lungs so they can process water or does it magically supply you with air? if its the second I guess you could drown with water breathing because its not designed to work that way.

[el minster]

The same rulebook that says you can cast the spell says it doesn't work on creatures that can breath water.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Well, considering what the part you just quoted says...


You can flood the lungs of a willing, helpless, or fascinated creature by touching it (traditionally by kissing the creature on the lips) as a standard action. If the target cannot breathe water, it cannot hold its breath and immediately begins to drown.
On its turn, the target can attempt a Fortitude save to cough up this water; otherwise it falls unconscious at 0 hit points. On the next round, the target must save again or drop to –1 hit points and be dying; on the third round it must save again or die. Succeeding at any of these Fortitude saves causes the target to cough up the water and no longer be drowning, ending the effect. Activating this fey-blessing costs an additional spell point.

[Hawk12192]

Sounds gm dependent, but it would appear to me that it has no effect based on the "if the target cannot breath" water part.

[ericgrau]

I think this is one of those times the rules are not prepared for the situation. Yeah if you're super strict it has no effect at all and that may be the correct interpretation as others said. I'm sure filling the water with lungs has other negative effects besides suffocation. But everything I Googled said the main issue was difficulty breathing, even with limited amounts of water in the lungs. So I'm guessing the other negative effects are minor if it even does fill the lungs with water at all in this situation.

I would rule it as having no immediate game effect or perhaps a coughing fit that's harmless other than being a major distraction. So perhaps give the nauseated condition in that the player can use a move action but not a standard. Each turn he rolls the fortitude save until he succeeds, with no time limit nor unconsciousness, and then when he succeeds he removes the nauseated condition and may act normally. Again other DMs might say no effect or no significant effect and I wouldn't disagree with that either.