While the ability mentions a fort save, the way it works is that you are distracted, not so much at risk of losing your lunch, so would an object/Construct/Undead that has to react to a swarm still be susceptible and need to roll a fort save vs a swarm's distraction?
To me, it seems that the function is you aren't checking if you are "nauseated" so much as checking if you are even doing anything worthwhile as you try and "push through" a swarm that engulfed you. Therefore, you would still need to make the check as a construct/animate object/undead.
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If you're asking as a rules question then it's simple, no they're not affected due to the fort save. If you're asking whether Drac- Count Strahd should be affected by the swarms of bats he summoned, or whether a stone golem should be able to stride through spider swarms unimpeded, I'm still with the RAW there. OTOH if you're the GM and you want to set up a particular scenario where the skeletons can't effectively act until the rats gnawing on the bones disperse, go for it.
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Also it's worth remembering that the "Nauseated" condition doesn't necessarily mean you're actually nauseated. It just means you lose your standard action (and whatever else I might have forgotten about the nauseated condition, do they lose swift actions as well?)
So in this case the distraction ability doesn't necessarily actually make people feel sick, it just takes enough of their attention that they can't take their usual actions. They have the same game-mechanic penalties as someone who's retching their guts up, even if the flavour is different.
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So going back to avr's example, Strahd might be immune to his own swarm's distraction ability, but not to the party's swarm that they send after him (by RAW I'm pretty sure he IS immune, but if you like to change it for your game that's fine).
It's actually for a character in one of my campaigns, became an undead and is currently in a swarm created by the mantis assassin version of creeping doom. So far he has saved every time before he pointed out that he should be immune and we had to stop session because we were already an hour and a half over time, but I wanted to confirm that indeed swarm distraction doesn't work on "intelligent" objects.
Sure a mundane, unattended chair isn't distracted by the swarm of locusts eating it, but can a golem or zombie automatically not lose their standard action in said swarm of bugs?
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Pretty much yup.
Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
(I know you already know that, but I'm just putting it there for reference)
The idea was written as a broad catch-all since fortitude is your ability to withstand physical trauma/distress/etc. Undead aren't "connected" to their bodies the same way we are, and said bodies are animated differently (if a skeleton can function without its muscles it probably doesn't care about flesh-eating beetles). There are probably a few cases where they shouldn't necessarily be immune, but writing specific rules for those corner cases is often more trouble than it's worth.
It's not that unbalanced, my Bloodrager has a Swarmbane Clasp, so he's immune to the distraction ability as well.
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Distraction (Ex) A creature with this ability can nauseate the creatures that it damages. Any living creature that takes damage from a creature with the distraction ability is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 creature’s HD + creature’s Con modifier) negates the effect.
I suspect that most of the time constructs and undead will suffer 0 damage from a swarm.
Generally, undead and construct won't be fazed by creatures crawling over them and it is a Fortitude save, so RAW, they are immune and I don't see why most of them will have any problem with having bugs crawl over them.
The exceptions are more based on role-playing than rules or creature type.
If the undead has a mind and while alive had a bug phobia or a rupophobia, the phobia is still there and he will suffer from it.
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Well there's the other half I didn't think about. It does say "living" creature, so technically a plant cares but a zombie doesn't by RAW.
That's still a little overall odd to me as the way Diego describes it, it's more of a mind affecting and therefore Will save thing instead of Fort, but oh well. It's also a 4d6 dmg swarm so it'll probably get through most creatures hardness/DR semi-consistently.
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For creatures without a phobia, it is physical. Bugs entering your nose, your mouth, biting you everywhere, and that doesn't affect non-living creatures.
The mental part is for the exceptions. Undead with an almost human mind, constructs with the implanted mind of a human, and so on.
You can make memorable characters of them, but they will be unique, not the average Joe undead.
;-)