Is feint / bluff a mind effect?

[kortzen]

and can one bluff/feint an intelligent undead?
there already is a short tread to this questions, it brought consensus that one can. Do you agree? and further - is it a mind effect?

[Kazaan]

Nothing about it indicates it is mind-affecting. Mind effects alter one's perception or processing of reality. If you were to use magic to make an illusion, that's a Mind effect. By contrast, if you're actually throwing them off with real movements, it's just mundane faking out. This is why you take penalties when trying to feint an animal; they don't comprehend the attempt at misdirection. Creatures with no Int aren't affected because of the null Int score, not because of the mindless quality that goes along with it. Therefore, Intelligent Undead can be feinted, but you take a -4 penalty because they are not Humanoids.

[Blackstorm]

I don't think it's a mind affecting. If it were, it should have specificated in the entry. But it's not, so no, it's not a mind affecting.

[kortzen]

Thanks a lot for your answers, I agree with you. Does anybody disagree?

[Thebethia]

Thematically speaking feinting is tricking your opponent into shifting their defense to the wrong spot. So it should be possible to fake out any creature that actively tries to defend itself. I would argue that a mindless creature should be easier to fake out (it's mindless, that should mean it has a hard time anticipating the movements of its opponent).

Conversely, it shouldn't be possible to fake out a creature that makes no effort to avoid attacks (like an ooze), but such a creature also shouldn't have any dodge modifiers to negate.

[DM_Blake]

Feint cannot be used at all against creatures with no intelligence score, such as skeletons and zombies (and most insects and oozes). Likewise, creatures with super low INT scores like animals (INT 1 or 2) get a significant bonus to avoid being feinted due to their low INT.

But the OP clearly said "intelligent undead" so that rules them out anyway - I just wanted to make that point clear for everyone who might read this thread.

Now, the bluff rules and feint rules don't say anything about these abilities being "mind-affecting", therefore they are not. Yes, clearly, this skill is being used to trick the victim's mind and therefore it does affect his mind, but that is only English semantics; for this purpose "mind-affecting" is a game term that has specific game mechanics and in order for an effect to be "mind-affecting" it must explicitly state as much in the description of the effect, which this does not.

Ergo, not "mind-affecting".

[MrSin]

Here's the exact quote for how to handle non humans. It isn't mind affecting, but you can't feign a mindless creature.

PFSRD wrote:

When feinting against a non-humanoid you take a –4 penalty. Against a creature of animal Intelligence (1 or 2), you take a –8 penalty. Against a creature lacking an Intelligence score, it's impossible. Feinting in combat does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

[kortzen]

Thanks to all of you for your decent answers! They did help me a lot.