Are Fiendish Vermin Mindless?

[FireLance]

Thread title says it all. Normal Vermin are mindless and have no Intelligence score. The Fiendish template gives a minimum Intelligence of 3. So, are Fiendish Vermin mindless? Specifically:
- Are they still immune to mind-affecting effects?
- Do they now gain skill points (3 + 1/HD)?

 

[Grazzt]

Thread title says it all. Normal Vermin are mindless and have no Intelligence score. The Fiendish template gives a minimum Intelligence of 3. So, are Fiendish Vermin mindless? Specifically:
- Are they still immune to mind-affecting effects?
- Do they now gain skill points (3 + 1/HD)?

Not mindless anymore with an Int of 3. Also note that a vermin with this template becomes a magical beast. From the template:

"Size and Type: Animals or vermin with this template become magical beasts..."

As for skill points. It depends on how you interpret this part of the template:

"Do not recalculate the creature’s Hit Dice, base attack bonus, saves, or skill points if its type changes",


If you do add skill points, remember its skill points would be (2 + Int mod, minimum 1) x (HD + 3).

 

[the Jester]

iirc, the fiendish creature retains all the base creature's special qualities, so I'd leave them immune to mind-affecting effects (justify it by saying what mind a fiendish scorpion or whathaveyou has is too alien to be affected by conventional mind-affecting stuff).

I wouldn't add skill points either- that 'do not recalculate' thing, you know.

 

[Urbannen]

Personally I don't understand why anything with a mind should be immune to mind-influencing effects, but I'm sure the Jester is right - no doubt the intelligent fiendish vermin somehow officially retain that immunity.

 

[Storm Raven]

Personally I don't understand why anything with a mind should be immune to mind-influencing effects, but I'm sure the Jester is right - no doubt the intelligent fiendish vermin somehow officially retain that immunity.

Actually, officially they don't, but you have to go through some rules calisthenics to figure that out. They become augmented vermin, and lose all the traits of their fomer type, but keep the features. The mindless quality for vermin is a trait, so they lose it.

Personally, I leave the mindless trait on there. I chalk it up to extradimensional oddness that extraplanar vermin have an Intelligence score but are unaffected by mind infleuncing stuff.