Another rules question I thought of that would be worth discussing. We have a house rule right now that a person is not flat footed if they lose initiative. Not a rule I agree with but it is already settled so that is fine. However, this has a consequence that I think we should change. Normally you cannot use an immediate action if your are flat flooted. This prevents someone from casting an immediate action spell if they lose initiative. Since we got rid of flat footedness based on initiative, a spellcaster can now cast an immediate action spell even if they lose initiative. I think being able to cast a spell on your opponents turn when you lose initiative is too powerful and skews the field even more towards casters, which is already a problem to begin with. I think we should not allow immediate action spells in the 1st round if you lose initiative. Of course as always the DM could cut this conversation short and make a ruling but I think it is worth discussing.
It should be noted that you are only flat footed for the first round of the encounter when you lose the initial initiative roll. We have modified the rule in several aspects. In addition to not being flat footed we have allowed you to make attacks of opportunity. These changes make losing initiative not such a big deal, however we don't reroll every round, which means the loser is stuck with going latter every round. Changing these rules has probably led to some muddling of action rules in general but on the whole I think they make sense and streamline game play.
With that out of the way, I completely agree with Windblade that you should not be able to use an immediate action, in the first round, when you lose initiative.
