Blistering Invective spell vs undead

[Demondog]

The spell itself does not say mind affecting, just evocation, so can it affect any undead?

https://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9svt
The FAQ mentions itimidate *skill*, but this is caused by a spell not a skill.

Spell details:
>>When you cast this spell, make an Intimidate check to demoralize each enemy within 30 feet of you. Enemies that are demoralized this way take 1d10 points of fire damage and must succeed at a Reflex save or catch fire.

or is that regardless that spell lacks the tag [mind-affecting], undead just cant be itimidated regardless of method of itimidation?

Thoughts?

[Foeclan]

Demoralize is a specific use of Intimidate, so if they're immune to Intimidate, they'd be immune to Demoralize (and thus Blistering Invective, since it needs to demoralize them to deal its damage).

[Catharsis]

Where exactly does it say that Undead cannot be intimidated? I couldn't find such a rule in a cursory search. Not all Undead are mindless after all, but even the term «mindless» doesn't specify anything of the like in the glossary.

[Sandslice]

The Demoralize effect of Intimidate is mind-affecting:

CRB FAQ wrote:

Fear effects include spells with the fear descriptor, anything explicitly called out as a fear effect, anything that causes the shaken, frightened, or panicked condition, and all uses of the Intimidate skill. Intimidate, in particular, is a mind-affecting fear effect, so fearless and mindless creatures are immune to all uses of Intimidate.

Morale effects, unlike fear effects, so far have not had a descriptor or a call-out. Anything that grants a morale bonus is a morale effect. For example, the rage spell grants a morale bonus, so a creature immune to morale effects would be immune to the entire spell, including the –2 penalty to AC.

Undead have type-immunity to mind-affecting. As such, Intimidate doesn't work on them, and so they ignore Burning Invective. (Unless you have an Undead-line sorcerer's arcana or some other effect that can get around the type-immunity.)

[Catharsis]

Makes sense, thanks!

[Dragonboxer]

You could, however, become an Anti-paladin. And remove fear immunity from the undead yes?

[Sandslice]

Dragonboxer wrote:

You could, however, become an Anti-paladin. And remove fear immunity from the undead yes?

1. There are fear effects (ie, effects that add the conditions Shaken, Frightened, or Panicked) which are not mind affecting. Three feat examples:

- Dragon Ferocity (Dragon style feat) allows you to use unarmed crits (ok vs. undead) or Stunning Fist (NOT ok; undead are immune to stun) to inflict Shaken.
- Signature Strike Style (a style designed around called shots) lets you do a mark like Zorro's "sign of the Z" that inflicts Shaken on a failed Will save.
- The Fearsome Spell metamagic attaches a Shaken rider to damage spells, subject to either the base spell's saving throw or a Will save to avoid the Shaken.

2. Undead do not have type immunity to fear. In fact, no types (not even constructs) actually have a type immunity to fear.
- Two subtypes (kaiju and sahkil) have such an immunity.
- We could conceivably use the Terror Creature template on an undead to grant immunity to fear, since this template has it. However...

3. Intimidate is both mind-affecting and fear.
- If an anti-pally were to encounter a terror ghoul, he could suppress the monster's template immunity to fear... but still not its type immunity to fear. As such, Intimidate (which is mind-affecting) still won't work.

[avr]

For an antipaladin, removing fear immunity is mainly about fighting paladins at full effectiveness. Just an addendum to Sandslices last post above.