but the kind I described work by having the different balls dissolve at different rates in one's stomach acid, and it's at least plausible that dampening them would change that property so that they all dissolve quickly and put however-many hours' worth of drug in your bloodstream at once, which sounds potentially-dangerous to me.

Any delivery mechanism which can be dangerously interfered with by taking pills with water, or drinking water shortly before or after taking the pills, is in urgent need of replacement. Although there are medical treatments which you're supposed to avoid drinking water before, I don't think any pills such as this actually exist.