Bewildering Ko-andary

[Aasif Al Jamyl]

I'm wondering how the following rules should interact.

1) Bewildering Koan (Gnomes of Golarion): As a swift action, spend 1 point from your ki pool and make a Bluff check by asking a creature one of the impossible questions you ponder when meditating. If the creature fails its check, you choose whether it loses its next action or you gain a +2 bonus on all damage rolls you make against that creature for 1 round.

2) Flat-Footed (Core Rule Book): At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed.

Does this mean that a fast-acting wily gnome can ask a silly, answerless question in the first round of combat and, assuming the target of this posed quandary understands the language and fails its opposed check, it remains flat-footed until its initiative comes around in round 2? Distilled down to syntax and semantics, does not being able to act count as "a chance to act"? By extension, could this process be repeated until the wise/idiot gnome monk runs out of ki?

Assuming this is how things work, I imagine that making this a viable strategy, meaning one with any reasonable and reliable chance of success, would predetermine nearly ALL a character's choices for 10 or more levels, and quite likely leave them a one-trick pony.

TIA

[VRMH]

Aasif Al Jamyl wrote:

Does this mean that a fast-acting wily gnome can ask a silly, answerless question in the first round of combat and, assuming the target of this posed quandary understands the language and fails its opposed check, it remains flat-footed until its initiative comes around in round 2?

Depending on how your GM interprets the "next action" that is being lost. If the target only loses his Standard Action it can still move, and thus no longer be flat-footed. But if all of its actions for that round are taken away, then it remains flat-footed for as long as it hasn't acted.

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could this process be repeated until the wise/idiot gnome monk runs out of ki?

Sure, as long as the target keeps failing its check.

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Assuming this is how things work, I imagine that making this a viable strategy, meaning one with any reasonable and reliable chance of success, would predetermine nearly ALL a character's choices for 10 or more levels, and quite likely leave them a one-trick pony.

It's not a bad trick to have, but you'll need a partner to actually abuse the flat-footedness. You merely lock down a target (if you win the initiative, and if you keep winning the Bluff check, and if the enemy can hear and understand you, and if the enemy was flat-footed to begin with).