Does Undines curse wake you up.

[Balancer]

For refernce it's a level 1 sorc/wizard, witch spell from the adavnced race guide that lasts 1/hour per level that stops you breathing automatically. It's based off a real life condition called Central Hyperventilation Syndrom or CHS, also known as Ondine's Curse.

What I want to know is if a character who is curse falls asleep, starts suffocating and hits 0 hp would wake up. In reality the syndrome is lethal if you're asleep but Pathfinder's suffocation rules aren't exactly realistic.

[Talonhawke]

No since normally suffocation renders you unconscious this won't wake you up meaning if you sleep you will probably die. Also flagged for move to the rules forum.

[Diego Rossi]

The spell allow you to hold your breath, and if your constitution check succeed it will wake you up. If you fail you fall unconscious and will die.

Honestly it is a very bad spell. Potentially deadly at first level, with no HD/level limit, a long duration and extremely difficult to adjudicate.

What is the effect of being forced to think about breathing?
You consume actions? You are distracted? You can speak or cast spells? You should make concentration checks to use SLA or cast spells?

[Byakko]

It is indeed a very poorly written spell. Probably best for GMs/players just to stay away from it. However, I will note that:

Quote:

If it is ever unconscious (including sleeping) or unable to take physical actions, it stops breathing, must hold its breath, and might begin to suffocate..

So this implies that the unconscious/sleeping character is able (and must) hold its breath, rather than immediately starting to suffocate.

As it's unclear what happens next, I would suggest that a body which has stopped breathing will probably set off all sorts of alarm bells in the victim's brain, waking them up from typical sleep.

If it's some sort of deeper unconsciousness, however, they're probably out of luck and will die as soon as their oxygen runs out and they suffocate.

As to Diego's questions, the spell states that the victim is able to function normally while conscious.