Looking for some confirmation on a rule as I'm 100% sure debate of it will come up in game either this week or next:
The party has a fighter with the crossbowman archetype who spends almost all of his actions making readied attacks to hit opponents if they move/attack/cast a spell, etc. He's above 7th level, so targets of a readied attack from him lose their Dex bonus to AC.
In an upcoming dungeon, there are opponents with the missile shield feat (missile shield essentially being deflect arrows, but with a shield). One of the requirements of Missile Shield is that the shield-wielder cannot be flat-footed.
In the case of rogues, flat-footed vs. denied Dex to AC is pretty clearly spelled out, but I'd like to confirm in this situation. Is the shield wielder who is denied his Dex bonus considered flat footed and unable to use his feat? Or are the two just similar concepts, with denied Dex not preventing abilities that fail while flat footed?
Answers are appreciated, sources are even better, as I love to be able to cite things.
One of the effects of being flat-footed is you are denied your dexterity bonus to AC. This does not mean that all effects that deny your dex bonus to AC make you flat-footed.
Example: When you are using acrobatics to move on a narrow surface, you are explicitly made flat-footed and lose your dex to AC (page 87 CRB, acrobatics skill). When you are climbing, you also lose your dex to AC, but are not called out as being flat-footed. (page 91 CRB, climb skill).
EDIT: unbalanced parentheses
EDIT2: CRB page 567 "Flat-Footed: 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 (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity."
EDIT3: Found it
Improved Deadshot (Ex)
At 7th level, when a crossbowman attacks with a crossbow as a readied action, his target is denied its Dexterity bonus to its AC. This ability replaces Armor Training 2.
Improved Deadshot may deny the target dex to AC, but does NOT say that it makes the target flat-footed.
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From my reading, these are two separate things that have no affect on one another.
The missle shield feat just says that the creature must be aware and not flat-footed. Essentially, the creature could not use this feat until it has acted in combat.
The fighter, when using the improved deadshot ability, will have an easier time at hitting the target.
Denied dexterity does not mean flat-footed. Both sides will be able to use their respective class/feat abilities.
Flat-footed denies Dex, but you can be denied Dex for many other reasons, too.
The Crossbowman feature denies dex--that is all.