Clever Feint and the Flat-footed Condition

What is the correct way of handling Clever Feint and reactions?

Clever Feint (Ex)
As a standard action, you can fake out an enemy within 60 feet, making that enemy open to your attacks. Attempt a Bluff check with the same DC as a check to feint against that enemy (though this isn’t a standard check to feint, so Improved Feint and Greater Feint don’t apply). Even if you fail, that enemy is flat-footed against your attacks (see page 276) until the end of your next turn. If you succeed, the enemy is also flat-footed against your allies’ attacks until the end of your next turn. You can’t use clever feint against a creature that lacks an Intelligence score.At 6th level, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to treat a failed Bluff check for clever feint as if it were a success.

Flat-Footed
At the start of a combat, if you are surprised, you are flat-footed until you become aware of combat and have had a chance to act. Many other effects can cause you to become flat-footed. You take a –2 penalty to your AC and cannot take reactions while flat-footed.

Now, I have been reading "flat-footed against your attacks" as a limited form of the flat-footed condition, that is only applied while resolving your attack. Thus would mean that if you were to take a move action out of a threatened square after using Clever Feint on the threatening creature, it would still be able to take an attack of opportunity. I have had some conversation with other people who have been treating Clever Feint (and Clever Attack) as granting the flat-footed condition in its entirety.

The term "flat-footed against your attack" is not defined anywhere tgat I have found in the kind of details that would cover all edge cases, like whether casting a spell with an attack roll would provoke a reaction from a creature under this effect.

So, what, if any, reactions can a creature take after a Clever Feint.

Note: this is not a question of balance, as an envoy using Clever feint is not unbalanced in either interpretation, just an attempt to find a rules consensus or even a clarification from some passage that I have missed.

I have played it with both interpretations, and I've determined that your reading is accurate; succeeding with Clever Feint (or Clever Attack) only makes the enemy flat-footed to your team's attacks.

This means that their AC is considered 2 lower AND they can make ranged weapon attacks from threatened squares without fear of an AoO. Casting a spell from or moving through a threatened square would still open the intruder up to an AoO.

Playing it as applying the flat-footed condition in its entirety is a little too good because, unlike Debilitating Trick from an Operative, it doesn't require an attack roll to work, only a (sometimes VERY) easy skill check.

I was using that interpretation in the Against the Aeon Throne AP to completely roll enemies by feinting and then casually walking around them to get into a flanking position for the solarian to destroy them later in the turn. It was kinda gross.

I’ve always taken it at face value, and treated it like the target is flat footed against whatever attacks are appropriate, based on whatever happened with the ability.

So, yes, they would be able to do anything any other NPC could do, except for flat footed would kick in as soon as they became a target for an attack.

As far as a spell provoking or not… that’s harder, and I found myself having a circular argument with myself trying to type it. So, attempt 2:

You declare you are casting a spell, let’s say as a standard action. As far as I know, Starfinder retains the whole ‘you choose a target when the spell is complete’ thing. So if you can’t choose a target, then the NPC can’t be flat footed yet, thus the casting portion of the spell would provoke. The attacking portion of the spell is when you declare who you’re going to hurt, so that part wouldn’t provoke, from the kind-of-flat-footed enemy.

Unless Starfinder didn’t keep that line from Pathfinder. If it didn’t, then I’m wrong, and I’m ok with being corrected.

And in case in comes up, yes, I’m assuming that ‘flat footed against your attacks’ means attacks, from you, targeting the NPC. And not that you can fire a ranged weapon at a different target and not provoke from the (mysteriously adjacent) K.O.F.F. enemy. Though, upon reading this, I may have just convinced myself that the NPC is flat footed against any attack you make, regardless of the target.

So, let’s discuss! BNW, hit me!

This is really annoying. If they're different they should have called it flummoxed and it's a lesser form of flat footed so they don't stack.

I kinda started this over on discord. The wording was only recently pointed out to me in a game a couple weeks ago after months of playing it as them being just 'flat-footed' with my envoy (and running it that way myself for other envoys). It was the first time anyone had said, "they aren't flat-footed".

The confusion I had was mostly about adjudicating the success condition and not the failure condition. Though now that I re-read it, even that can cause problems since it's til the end of your next turn. I don't see a clear definition of what 'flat-footed to attacks' means and it's obvious now that I've been reading it differently than other people. (I may have missed it, feel free to correct me.)

Without a definition for what 'flat-footed to attacks' means, I see the potential for a lot of table arguments. While an action like charge specifies that you make the attack after your movement, a spell like caustic conversion does no such thing. In fact, a lot of spells have you make an attack as part of casting the spell. With clever feint, do those provoke, or not? The attack is part of the action, so they shouldn't get reactions since they're flat-footed? There isn't a section on how spellcasting works the way there was in PF, so every GM is free to rule it differently. I think there are a couple of abilities that have you make an attack during movement. Shot on the Run for example says "At any point during your movement." Can I not make the attack at the point in my movement that I'd provoke? Would they be flat-footed and therefore not get the AOO, or no?

Trick attack doesn't have this problem, because you only make a single attack and they're only flat-footed for that attack. But Clever Feint (and in some cases Feint) has this ambiguity because the sudo-condition lasts until the end of your next turn.

Oh, and to be clear, I certainly wasn't suggesting that if you Clever Feinted NPC A, NPC B was somehow magically flat-footed or that you couldn't provoke AOO's from anyone.