I've finally decided to go in and houserule the heck out of Pathfinder to get the game to fit what I want out of it. One thing I'm not satisfied with are a lot of the core feats. So I'm going through to see what can be done to make every feat an exciting and tantalizing choice to made and feel like a real power upgrade for the character. Every time a feat is written down on that character sheet it should feel like the moment when an Immortal in Highlander cuts another Immortal's head off.
First a look...
PRD wrote:
Improved Precise Shot (Combat)
Your ranged attacks ignore anything but total concealment and cover.
Prerequisites: Dex 19, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, base attack bonus +11.
Benefit: Your ranged attacks ignore the AC bonus granted to targets by anything less than total cover, and the miss chance granted to targets by anything less than total concealment. Total cover and total concealment provide their normal benefits against your ranged attacks.
Normal: See the normal rules on the effects of cover and concealment in Combat.
There isn't anything wrong with the feat, beyond the fact that you have to wait too long to use it. If you want that feel of a precision sniper you have to wait till you're legendary hero to pull it off, which for many campaigns will never happen because they'll start at level 1 and never get high enough.
Fortunately, this feat is actually pretty easy to scale.
Start with -1 AC to cover, or -5% from concealment. Then every three levels after first increase this modifier by -1 or -5% to a max of -4 or -20%. This results in modifiers at 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th level. So you get a one level bump in when this kicks in, but that won't make any real difference in terms of balance.
This way, you can go after precision aiming right from the start if you like, rather than it suddenly snapping into place abruptly at level 11.
