Intimidate vs Blindness

[Bunch of Grapes]

I had a situation occur in a recent game I DM'd and need some clarification to make sure I'm handling it right. One of my players has a half-orc PC optimized to use intimidate. So the first time he runs into a destrachan, the PC doesn't recognize it (no ranks in knowledge dungeoneering) or have any clue of its abilities. So he tries to use intimidate to demoralize the destrachn, of course.

And I said he wouldn't be able to do so. Intimidate used to demoralize an opponent states " You can only threaten an opponent this way if it is within 30 feet and can clearly see and hear you" via the PRD. Since the destrachan is blind, it can't "clearly see" the PC as required. The destrachan has blindsight, but that is something different from sight since blindsight uses nonvisual cues. So that's what I used as a basis to explain why the destrachan could not be demoralized with intimidate. Did I handle this right??

Now this raises a couple of other points. Since intimidate used to demoralize opponents requires visual and auditory elements, anything that is deaf or blind is effectively immune to intimidate. Also any creature affected by a silence spell would be unaffected by intimidate and unable to intimidate as well. Are these points correct?

I tried find if any previous faqs or posts addressed this problem, but I haven't found any so far. Let me know if anyone else has encountered a similar situation or has a view on this.

[Chess Pwn]

yeah, that looks like a valid way to rule it.

[Calth]

Blindsight is kind of a grey area in a lot of vision specific cases besides the few it covers specifically in its rules. It is kind of vision, and kind of not. RAW, you are definitely covered, but RAI can go either way, leaning towards you being correct, since blindsight effectively reproduces the same visual components required for demoralization. But effectively reproduce is not the same as equivalent, so that's where its open for interpretation. As a player that plays a lot of intimidation builds, I know I would say fair enough and move on.

As for blindness/deafness/silence, yes, all those definitely prevent demoralization.

[Dave Justus]

I don't know that you were wrong exactly, but that isn't how I would have ruled it.

Destrachan have great perception and a pretty good sense motive. That says to me that they can interact well enough to be intimidated.

From a rules perspective, the question would be does the ability 'immune to attacks relying on sight' include demoralize, which I don't think it does, as demoralize is not an attack as far as I can tell. Although the flavor text does say the Destrachan is blind, it doesn't have the blinded condition (unless deafened) so that doesn't apply.

However, this is I think legitimately open to interpretation, and I wouldn't be upset with a GM that ruled as you did.

[RDM42]

I would tend to do it in house as having a penalty to intimidate, since it has only one of the two senses it relies on. I'm pretty sure even if you aren't able to be heard you could intimidate a deaf man, and even if they can't see you you could intimidate a blind man with your words and voice.

[Claxon]

I agree with Dave Justus. I probably wouldn't have ruled the way you did, but I wouldn't argue with it as a player.

I feel blindsight allow the creature to "see" well enough to be intimidated.