Enemy Fear vs Undead

[Wild Child]

I'm playing a Lich with an all undead party yet my entire group was just affected by an enemy fear effect. Is this a bug or does mind effecting spells work on undead and I just never realized? My entire party, including my lich just tore ass halfway across a whole zone!

[Minneyar]

The "Dirge Bard" bard archetype gets an ability that allows their mind-affecting abilities to affect undead creatures. You were probably fighting something that had that.

[Wild Child]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

The "Dirge Bard" bard archetype gets an ability that allows their mind-affecting abilities to affect undead creatures. You were probably fighting something that had that.

It was the first Vivaka (or w/e) demon during Inevitable Excess near the camp where Storyteller is at the beginning. It didn't appear to be a Bard at all. Someone pointed out yo me that undead is immune to all kinds of stuff BUT fear. Which is just weird.

[Wild Child]

Just came across another Vavakia in the Threshold map for Inevitable Excess and its doing the same thing. I examine it and it does have a lot of abilities but I see nothing that should cause a fear effect, let alone one that makes fear work on undead.

[Wild Child]

Originally posted by talemore:

Undead are not immune to fear effect as there are as example a wizard necromancer subtype who make undead run away in fear.

But there are so many exceptions that it's most of the time everything is suggestions.

From a player point of view it is frustrating to not have rules who are always working.

Your undeads are pretty much obsolete as there are too many exceptions.

What undead do have is protection against negative levels and ability to heal from negative energy, but then there are monster who as well having exceptions of being undead and heals from positive energy that it's a mess.

Those advantages are so tiny since they're easy obtained by a magic caster casting death ward.

You have abilities who can make undead run away in fear, able to mind control undead and being harmed by the most common thing, healing potions.

Yeah, I see. I have just invested in communal mind blank. As long as it's not a bug, it's ok. Just need to find the right way to protect from it now.

[Minneyar]

Actually, yeah, that's a good point. Undead are immune to all mind-affecting effects, but there are abilities that can make the target shaken/fightened/panicked that are not technically mind-affecting. Mind Blank will probably not protect against those since it specifies mind-affecting effects. I'm actually a little surprised WotR would make that distinction since it's so uncommon.

[Wild Child]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Actually, yeah, that's a good point. Undead are immune to all mind-affecting effects, but there are abilities that can make the target shaken/fightened/panicked that are not technically mind-affecting. Mind Blank will probably not protect against those since it specifies mind-affecting effects. I'm actually a little surprised WotR would make that distinction since it's so uncommon.

So far, Remove Fear and Communal Mind Blank seems to be helping. No of my undead have run for their 'lives' since I started using them.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Wild Child:

I'm playing a Lich with an all undead party yet my entire group was just affected by an enemy fear effect. Is this a bug or does mind effecting spells work on undead and I just never realized? My entire party, including my lich just tore ass halfway across a whole zone!

So in the pen & paper main rulebook, there's a feat called "turn undead".

Turn Undead
Calling upon higher powers, you cause undead to flee from the might of your unleashed divine energy.
Prerequisites: Channel positive energy class feature.

Benefit: You can, as a standard action, use one of your uses of channel positive energy to cause all undead within 30 feet of you to flee, as if panicked. Undead receive a Will save to negate the effect. The DC for this Will save is equal to 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Charisma modifier. Undead that fail their save flee for 1 minute. Intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each round to end the effect. If you use channel energy in this way, it has no other effect (it does not heal or harm nearby creatures).

Note that in the effect, they flee **AS IF** panicked, but don't actually become panicked (since they are immune.)

If I had to guess, I would assume that some of the NPC races/classes have something like this. It is a core rulebook feat, so even if it isn't a player option, it's probably integrated into the game to some extent.

In theory the necromancer specialist school for the wizard class gains access to this feat at level 1, though I don't really know what it does since there's isn't such a feat implemented into the game.
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Specialist+School

[Wild Child]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by Wild Child:

I'm playing a Lich with an all undead party yet my entire group was just affected by an enemy fear effect. Is this a bug or does mind effecting spells work on undead and I just never realized? My entire party, including my lich just tore ass halfway across a whole zone!

So in the pen & paper main rulebook, there's a feat called "turn undead".

Turn Undead
Calling upon higher powers, you cause undead to flee from the might of your unleashed divine energy.
Prerequisites: Channel positive energy class feature.

Benefit: You can, as a standard action, use one of your uses of channel positive energy to cause all undead within 30 feet of you to flee, as if panicked. Undead receive a Will save to negate the effect. The DC for this Will save is equal to 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Charisma modifier. Undead that fail their save flee for 1 minute. Intelligent undead receive a new saving throw each round to end the effect. If you use channel energy in this way, it has no other effect (it does not heal or harm nearby creatures).

Note that in the effect, they flee **AS IF** panicked, but don't actually become panicked (since they are immune.)

If I had to guess, I would assume that some of the NPC races/classes have something like this. It is a core rulebook feat, so even if it isn't a player option, it's probably integrated into the game to some extent.

In theory the necromancer specialist school for the wizard class gains access to this feat at level 1, though I don't really know what it does since there's isn't such a feat implemented into the game.
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Specialist+School

Thanks!

[Uzkin]

Also, the Undead Bloodline Arcana from undead bloodline allows the caster to bypass undead mind-effecting immunities such as immunity to fear.

[Myth Alric]

I had to find an undead to check it's traits and from the trait Undead Creature it is immune to bleed, petrification, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects, and stunning.

So there is no immunity to fear or mind-affecting spells.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Uzkin:

Also, the Undead Bloodline Arcana from undead bloodline allows the caster to bypass undead mind-effecting immunities such as immunity to fear.

That one has always confused me because it doesn't clearly state what it does.

[Minneyar]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

That one has always confused me because it doesn't clearly state what it does.

It does, but it takes a bit of work to parse it:

Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.

Undead normally have a blanket immunity to all mind-affecting effects (see https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ ). Not sure why Myth Alric isn't seeing that, maybe WotR removes that immunity on certain difficulty levels, similar to how on lower difficulties it allows normal weapons to damage swarms?

If you have this bloodline, then if an undead create is corporeal--in other words, it does not have the "Incorporeal" extraordinary ability, like ghosts--and if its type was "Humanoid" before it became an undead, then you treat them as humanoid for the purpose of determining which spells can affect them. So, for example, a human zombie could be affected by mind-affecting spells, but a bear zombie could not.

[Myth Alric]

That is the rules for pathfinder in general, but I looked up the character sheet in game. The undead have two traits. "Undead" which is just blank, and "Undead Creature" which listed what I posted as well as explaining them not having a con score stuff. Nothing on the monster's in game character sheet says immune to mind-affecting spells. And since the OP also stated that they didn't seem immune, it seems correct.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Minneyar:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

That one has always confused me because it doesn't clearly state what it does.

It does, but it takes a bit of work to parse it:

Corporeal undead that were once humanoids are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.

Undead normally have a blanket immunity to all mind-affecting effects (see https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/undead/ ). Not sure why Myth Alric isn't seeing that, maybe WotR removes that immunity on certain difficulty levels, similar to how on lower difficulties it allows normal weapons to damage swarms?

Twofold:

First, the description of the arcana you give is not the same as the description in-game. You have it as per the pen and paper, which is dif

Second, the description you gave does not clarify how it interacts with actual creatures. For example, if my undead creature is also a swarm and has no INT, then they are undead and also have the mindless trait. Does the bloodline override mindless AND undead, since the creature is undead, or does it do nothing because any immunity to mind affecting aside from the one provided by being undead is overridden by other sources of mind-affecting immunity?

PS: This game's bloodline arcana for undead is:

Some Undead are susceptible to your mind-affecting spells. Undead creatures are treated as humanoids for the purposes of determining which spells affect them.

Which is also unclear, The first line says one thing, the second line says something unrelated. It implies that undead are treated as humanoid for the purposes of your mind affecting spells, but it doesn't directly state that. This wording also doesn't clarify how undead with additional mind affecting immunity will interact with your mind affecting spells (such as if they have the swarm subtype).

I've reported this many times, they aren't going to change it....

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

That is the rules for pathfinder in general, but I looked up the character sheet in game. The undead have two traits. "Undead" which is just blank, and "Undead Creature" which listed what I posted as well as explaining them not having a con score stuff. Nothing on the monster's in game character sheet says immune to mind-affecting spells. And since the OP also stated that they didn't seem immune, it seems correct.

which undead creature did you look at? If you go into the encylopedia and look up creatures and find the zombie, zombies have the undead trait, which does not grant immunity to mind affecting, but the zombie is also immune to mind affecting, for some reason.

The lich companions are humanoids with an "undead creature" trait. They only kinda follow the undead rules. As far as I know, they aren't immune to mind affecting (it's not written down on their sheet anywhere). But the lich companions are very buggy...

In general, though, the pathfinder PC game doesn't really have creature types, they have traits and keywords. So your undead creature is just a regular creature with the undead keyword and the undead trait and some other related abililties, but mechnically that's different than how the pen & paper game handles undead. It's a subtle difference, but it's also a difference that likely makes things like the undead bloodline arcana really hard to implement.