I may have spoken too soon, as I thought something existed which I'm not able to find right now.
Fear isn't listed in the list of mind-affecting, but almost every fear example in the core rules is a mind-affecting effect. Intimidate To Demoralize is the main exception to this (and doesn't even list that it's a fear effect :p). Chill Touch and Turn Undead cause the undead to act as if they are panicked. I don't think it's possible to demoralize a mindless crab anymore than you could demoralize a zombie.
James, the creative director of Paizo, did say that undead are immune to fear effects. Your mileage may vary.
I also like the idea that fear effects are meant to be under the "morale effect" umbrella, since fear is a loss of morale.
Circles and circles.
Paladins are immune to fear. Done.
RAW: There is no written explanation either way.
RAI: The reason a giant crab is immune to mind-affecting effects is that his mind isn't structured in a way we can manipulate normally.
I would say that you cannot Intimidate a Giant Crab into being demoralized (therefore laying on the shaken condition).
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I would tend to agree that demoralising a giant crab would seem to be impossible on the face of it. The crab has no concept of your threats. How, exactly, are you able to scare a crab any more than you can scare a table? You're not causing it physical injury or laying hands on it; you're just yelling aggressively at it. It can't understand you. It doesn't know what your stance, volume, or tone of voice mean. It doesn't know if you're trying to be friendly or antagonistic. It just doesn't understand.
Intimidate causes the target to become shaken. Paladins are immune to being shaken by their fearless ability, wether the condition is magical or otherwise.
Seems pretty simple to me.
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I would tend to agree that demoralising a giant crab would seem to be impossible on the face of it. The crab has no concept of your threats. How, exactly, are you able to scare a crab any more than you can scare a table? You're not causing it physical injury or laying hands on it; you're just yelling aggressively at it. It can't understand you. It doesn't know what your stance, volume, or tone of voice mean. It doesn't know if you're trying to be friendly or antagonistic. It just doesn't understand.
Actually you can scare animals rather easily, and have you not been to the beach and watched scurry away from you as fast as they can? They are scared and you didn't need to do anything to them.
The immunity to mindeffecting seems to me like they should apply to non-mundane things only(for the crabs and such) as crabs are too simple to manipulate like that (a flashlight is a simple circut but takes a much more powerfull EMP to disrupt then a computer, I see mind effecting effects in a similar way)
Mundane things such as intimidate do not rely on magic or some supernatural power The barbarian's extraordinary ability only makes demoralize last longer then normal thus I would say shaken for 1 round + 1 per every 5 over the DC as per the pure intimidate skill.
That is just me though,
and I am assuming the Intimidating Glare is the barbarian ability everyone is refering to as demoralize is part of the intimidate skill and not a barbarian ability.
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Going to say it again:
All fear attacks are mind-affecting fear effects. Not all fear effects are fear attacks.
Because of this, all of the fear attacks in the game tend to be (I'm not going to trawl through them all to check) called out explicitly as mind-affecting. Other fear effects may also be defined as mind-affecting, but unless the wording supports it they are only fear effects.
Regardless, a paladin is immune to all fear effects, but a giant crab is not. The crab is only immune to those that are a) defined as fear attacks or b) explicitly called out as mind-affecting.
The Demoralise use of Intimidate is a fear effect, is not a fear attack, and is not explicitly mind-affecting, therefore it will work on a giant crab, by RAW.
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FAQing this just because I believe Demoralize to be a mind effecting fear effect, and that it should be classified as such for clarity in the skill section of the core rules.
Fear from the universal monster rules states that all Fear attacks are mind effecting fear effects.
Cause Fear [ Fear, Mind-Affecting ]
Scare [ Fear, Mind-Affecting ]
Fear [ Fear, Mind-Affecting ]
Chill Touch - not fear or mind affecting. can cause undead to flee as if panicked, giving them a condition they're normally immune to.
The developers can't say that Shaken, Panicked, Frightened are themselves mind-effecting fear effects, because then you couldn't have things like Turn Undead, or Chill Touch to give those effects to Undead.
But they should be able to say that Intimidate : demoralize , is a fear effect. otherwise currently RAW:
Undead can be shaken with Demoralize.
Vermin can be shaken with Demoralize.
I think RAI, those effects on undead and vermin shouldn't occur through Demoralize.
Morale effects are mind-affecting effects.
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Mindless creatures are immune to Demoralize because they are immune to Morale effects.Ah but why are they immune to Morale effects? As far as I can see they merely have immunity to all mind-affecting effects.
That does not mean that all Morale effects are Mind-effecting effects.
That's like saying all apples are oranges because apples and oranges are both fruits.
Also, the immunity to Morale effects is in the description of the Mindless quality.
Construct creature type:
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Ooze creature type:
Mindless: No Intelligence score, and immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects). An ooze with an Intelligence score loses this trait.
Plant creature type:
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Undead creature type:
Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms).
Vermin creature type:
Mindless: No Intelligence score, and immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, morale effects, patterns, and phantasms). A vermin-like creature with an Intelligence score is usually either an animal or a magical beast, depending on its other abilities.
I wonder why the ooze creature type listing of what mind-affecting effects are is in a different order.
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Mindless creatures are immune to Demoralize because they are immune to Morale effects.
you keep saying this. i keep countering with Shaken is not listed as a Morale effect.
it has an unclassified penalty. I'll stop rebutting it , but RAW its not correct.being immune to Morale effects largely makes them impossible to boost with certain spells like Good Hope, Remove Fear, certain aspects of Bardic Performance. I can't think of any specific Morale penalties imposed by spells or effects.
Ooooh, interesting!
Spells that affect minds are usually enchantment spells, unless they cause fear or affect undead, in which case they're necromancy spells.
Another thing, back from the days of 3.5:
This item gives immunity to fear and morale effects.
It's 3.5 though, so it's a toss up.
If intimidate were mind-affecting, a conjuring wizard could never intimidate the conjured devil.
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Intimidate itself may not need to be labelled Mind-Effecting. but the use as Demoralize should be. as is, its untyped. and could be used on constructs, undead, vermin, oozes. etc.
I've tried searching through paizo.com/prd but there's no explanation of the Morale bonus type.
And penalty in the starting terms states that most penalties are not typed. So there probably aren't any morale penalties in play anywhere. even Bane just gives a flat penalty where bless gives a morale bonus on attacks.
i found some definitions of common terms including morale bonus on another site,but nothing with a citation for patfhinder source as a reference, so i think its just a 3rd party list.
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There is also a difference between mundane and magic/extraordinary effects. Mundane is natural and doesn't have anything to do with the mind in the way that magic or extraordinary abilities do. Thus mundane effects such as intimidate can be untyped because they doesn't work like magic.
Magic reaches in and flips switches inside one's head, which is why "mindless" things are immune, they don't have they same kind of switches that the spells normally work against, thus they are ineffective. Mundane effects do nothing of the sort and thus work by displaying the things the vermin would usually decide as bad things and thus it makes a decision the same way it always does.
Even vermin have a desire to survive and if it believes it is going to die it will usually act to survive, thus intimidating a crab is making it think it's outmatched and going to die so it will decide to go away and find something else to eat.
There are exceptions, like colony insects such as ants or creatures defending a nest or young.
Often times self survival is forgotten for enemies because it's more fun to kill them (for some people) but you should be aware of that choice and the fact that is an unrealistic choice.
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i don't think you can intimidate a giant crab. or an insect , an insect swarm,
just like you can't intimidate a ghoul or a skeleton.
its not just that they don't have a mind for the purposes of a spell. they also don't have much in the way of intelligent action. they're motivated either by food, territory, or the like. they might flee if you've done a lot of damage to them and they're hurt. but trying to stare down an undead skeleton is futile. its just going to come at you and bite you anyway.
likewise you might wanna act like a punk and shake the construct. its just going to slam you and ask if you're stepping.
it makes more sense that these things are immune to the shaken condition, than to allow them to be shaken because they're not a supernatural or spell like ability but an extraordinary fear effect.
The undead type does not specify that they are "immune to fear effects". Merely that they are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Same goes for Construct.
This is from the most current version of creature types, Bestiary 3.
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For some things like zombies and constructs I would agree, however those are things that were made by people who are quite fallible and don't intend the same things for their designs as nature does, thus it is perfectly understandable.
But with natural things, they have a survival instinct of which fear is a major part. You can make insects afraid, some insects are more difficult then others, and some are truly immune (Almost always colony insects however, because they survive as a unit rather then as individuals)
A real crab can be afraid so I don't see any reason to say that crabs are fearless, though I can see how mind affecting magic wouldn't work unless specially designed to work on them.
All natural life has the purpose of survival of the species.
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The undead type does not specify that they are "immune to fear effects". Merely that they are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Same goes for Construct.
This is from the most current version of creature types, Bestiary 3.
You are correct. I went to double check, came to the same conclusion as you, and deleted my incorrect statement, but you were too quick and replied to it anyway!
Does it say anywhere explicitly that fear effects are morale effects?
Nope! There's a section in the Design a Spell portion of UM that this:
Spells that affect minds are usually enchantment spells, unless they cause fear or affect undead, in which case they're necromancy spells.
I think I mentioned the case where the rules don't ever explicitly say that you need to be one size larger than a creature you're mounted on. You infer it from all the other examples in the books, and a few places here or there that mention the rule.
My guess is that this is the case too.
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i've found no listing of what exactly a "morale effect" pertains to.
the closest i can surmise is morale bonuses do not effect creatures immune to "morale effects".
my opinion is that all fear effects are mind-affecting, as they used to be in 3.5, but the text got shifted around in the conversion to Pathfinder.
Undead, Constructs, Vermin : should be immune to fear.
Its nice to think that you can scare a crab. bright light should make a giant cockroach run away too. but the best way to simulate being able to make a creature like a giant crab go away is to hit it.
what can you imagine your character doing that will demoralize a crab? how can you effect it enough that it will sit there and be scared of you, enough that it will still attack you with a -2 penalty and quiver and quake in fear, but not run away? ( demoralize will never induce Frightened or Panicked. You're never going to chase off a Giant Crab or any other vermin with the Demoralize effect ). What you're describing doesn't exist in game terms under the Intimidate skill.
yelling at the crab will do nothing. it doesn't understand speech.
Undead, while created by fallible human beings or other magic wielding races, are not effected by fear. they have no brain which you can inspire fear in. thats why necromantic effects that do make them Panicked always say " as if panicked". So only magic can induce a state "like" fear to undead.
yelling at an undead abomination will do nothing. it has no mind. its just been ordered to kill you, and nothing extraordinary you can do will give it pause to equate to a -2 on attacks/skills/checks.
i don't think you can intimidate a giant crab. or an insect , an insect swarm,
just like you can't intimidate a ghoul or a skeleton.
This seems quite unrealistic to me. Any creature with a fight-or-flight response should be able to be intimidated. Out-of-game, if I smack my hand down near a fly, it flies away. So why shouldn't I be able, in-game, to frighten an insect?
I understand why skeletons would be immune to intimidate - they are not natural creatures and don't have the instincts/conditioning to flee from danger.
I also understand why you couldn't cast Cause Fear on an insect - its mind works so differently from normal animals that the spell doesn't "latch on" as its designed to.
It seems like a strange assumption, though, that a giant crab can't be intimidated, when, as someone mentioned, simply walk near to a crab on the beach and it will probably run away (and the Giant Crabs "behave much like their smaller cousins".)
yelling at the crab will do nothing. it doesn't understand speech.
A bear doesn't understand speech either, but you can still scare it away by yelling and looking large. I see no reason why a crab wouldn't be similarly cautious around loud noises and large, fast-moving objects.
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This seems quite unrealistic to me. Any creature with a fight-or-flight response should be able to be intimidated. Out-of-game, if I smack my hand down near a fly, it flies away. So why shouldn't I be able, in-game, to frighten an insect?
How about the army ants intent on defending their nest that you just stepped on? Do you just scare them away by stomping your foot near the ground as well?
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A bear doesn't understand speech either, but you can still scare it away by yelling and looking large. I see no reason why a crab wouldn't be similarly cautious around loud noises and large, fast-moving objects.
but a bear is an animal, and isn't immune to either mind-effecting effects and does have a brain to cast fear spells on.
what you and Hitomi are describing ( smacking your hand down near a fly, frightening off a giant crab ) is not what the Demoralize use of Intimidate does. The creature your character is intimidating will not run away once it is Shaken. It will stand its ground and continue to attack you.
what you want it to do, is become Frightened or Panicked. Which the Intimidate skill does not do.
You're rationalizing that you should be able to Frighten or Panic any creature with a fight/flight response even if it doesn't have a brain, with settling on allowing Shaken to work on those creatures. Which may be fine for a tiny or diminutive vermin. They can't do any damage to you, and perceive you as being massive. and they flee. without any direct damage.
a Giant Crab is a Vermin that's as large as a man. swatting at it will not do anything. and it has no mind to intimidate. Trying to equate what a fly or a regular crab on the beach will do, with what a Giant Crab will do, other than attack you, isn't going to work. Let alone what your medium character is going to possibly do to try and demoralize a Huge crab like this
Again, you want the vermin to run away with an intimidate check. Thats not going to happen. What we're discussing is whether you can make it frightened of you, so that it is Shaken, and will doubt itself enough to hit you less often, or make your other spells more effective against it. Its a vermin. its undead. its a construct. It cannot doubt itself. These are fear effects. It should be immune.
since the question at hand is no longer just demoralizing your opponent, but whether you can Demoralize Undead, Vermin etc. i've started a different topic: here
Shaken: Characters who are shaken take a –2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks.
Frightened: Characters who are frightened are shaken, and in addition they flee from the source of their fear as quickly as they can. They can choose the paths of their flight. Other than that stipulation, once they are out of sight (or hearing) of the source of their fear, they can act as they want. If the duration of their fear continues, however, characters can be forced to flee if the source of their fear presents itself again. Characters unable to flee can fight (though they are still shaken).
a Giant Crab is a Vermin that's as large as a man. swatting at it will not do anything. and it has no mind to intimidate. Trying to equate what a fly or a regular crab on the beach will do, with what a Giant Crab will do, other than attack you, isn't going to work. Let alone what your medium character is going to possibly do to try and demoralize a Huge crab like this
Again, you want the vermin to run away with an intimidate check. Thats not going to happen. What we're discussing is whether you can make it frightened of you, so that it is Shaken, and will doubt itself enough to hit you less often, or make your other spells more effective against it. Its a vermin. its undead. its a construct. It cannot doubt itself. These are fear effects. It should be immune.
I still think an extremely loud noise could frighten a giant crab enough that it attacks less vigorously and reacts less quickly. Maybe my real issue is with classifying a crab as "mindless", when a real life crab would not act in a mindless fashion (and would react fearfully to danger even before taking physical damage.)
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I agree with that, they are a simpler minded then what is classified as animals but they still have minds. Even plants which don't have minds still react to stimulie in a similar fashion (though the time require is usually a lot longer then animals).
@Serum
The ants (which I already classified as an exception) are a colony insect, which as for behaviour can be thought of as one semi-mobile creature with many little bodies. Each individual ant does suicidal things to preserve the colony, but yet if you imagined the colony as a single creature it's behaviour would be similar to other simple creatures. Including a sense of self preservation (as a colony the preservation of the colony is more important then preservation of individuals).
@Seraphimpunk
You make a good point, I was thinking frightened rather then shaken. However I think very few non-sentient creatures would be half way. They would either feel confident in success or flee, unless defending their den and/or young or if cornered.
Well that's the last I'll post here on the topic (left this here since it's a direct response)
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That is half way. It is being afraid but not so completely afraid that you lose control and run, but non-sentient creatures don't exercise much in the way of emotional control without strict training, they lack the ability to rationalize the need to control.
Emotions are the base motivation for creatures, they act because their emotions tell them to. Fear means it's time to run away. Sentient creatures can develop higher order motivations and can learn to control themselves to achieve things well beyond the base motivations.
Raw, questionable, thus its up to the gm.
Rai, unknown
Common sense, non magic effects shouldnt count as mind effecting (including chemicals, such as drugs or poisons, of a mundane sort)