Consider fighting a Phase Spider.
It keeps on shifting Ethereal/Material and back each round to annoy its preys.
Are the preys flat-footed each and any time it shifts to Material, despite the fact that they know the Phase Spider is "around"?
After that, if the preys are considered flat-footed each time, how can they counter? They may ready an action to attack as soon as the Spider materializes, but it's unrealistic that they perform a readied action if they're flat-footed (read: unready to act).
A Reflexes save could be afforded to the preys to be able to react (success: they make their readied action and are not flat-footed; failure: they remain flat-footed and take no action), but what should the DC be? Should it be the result of a Stealth check of the Spider?
If the Phase Spider phases out one round, and then attacks the next, the PCs (if they know what they're dealing with) should not be surprised. Even if they have no clue that it phased out to the ethereal plane and think it just used some sort of invisibility, they still wouldn't be surprised if it attacked the very next round. Now if the creature waited around for several minutes, until the party gave up its defensive stance and continued exploring, then it would get surprise again...unless the party was suspicious and deliberately stated they were being wary (halfmoves instead of full moves, readying an attack every 30 feet of movement, etc.)
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Well, the core book says:
"A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, unable to react normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC and Combat Manuever Defense (CMD) (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity."
So, technically, if they've acted, they're no longer flat-footed.
Consider fighting a Phase Spider.
It keeps on shifting Ethereal/Material and back each round to annoy its preys.
Are the preys flat-footed each and any time it shifts to Material, despite the fact that they know the Phase Spider is "around"?After that, if the preys are considered flat-footed each time, how can they counter? They may ready an action to attack as soon as the Spider materializes, but it's unrealistic that they perform a readied action if they're flat-footed (read: unready to act).
A Reflexes save could be afforded to the preys to be able to react (success: they make their readied action and are not flat-footed; failure: they remain flat-footed and take no action), but what should the DC be? Should it be the result of a Stealth check of the Spider?
Losing dex to AC and being flat-footed are two different, but similar things. You are not flat-footed once you have acted so you can ready an action to strike them.
If it phases each round (which indicates combat), then the combat doesn't end so they may continue to take actions (ready actions, etc) and they are not flat-footed.
The spider can't attack while ethereal so it has to shift back to attack.