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According to the FAQ, one cannot use Gang Up to flank with a ranged weapon.
But what if you had the Snap Shot feat, you are actually threatening with a ranged weapon, and thus can gain flanking normally when within 5' of an enemy.
Thus, could you use Gang Up when within 5' of an enemy when two other allies are adjacent to the enemy to gain flanking?
The reason that you can't get flanking with ranged weapons by using Gang Up isn't that ranged weapons don't normally threaten. It's because ranged weapons don't qualify for flanking.
When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner.
Yeah, the answer is you can't benefit from flanking with a ranged weapon, though Snap Shot will allow you to provide flanking bonuses to others.
You can't benefit from the flanking, others can. So long as you are threatening a creature with snap shot, your two allies with Gang Up benefit from flanking.
Even if they don't have Gang Up but you do have Snap Shot, a creature can flank with you normally as well. With Improved Snap Shot, this goes out to as far as 10 feet. With standard Snap Shot, this is only within 5 feet. But you can never benefit from flanking in this way with a ranged weapon.
Wait--that puts things in a different perspective.
So you can't flank with ranged weapons, even if you threaten an area? :-/
EDIT: Whelp, there goes my Zen Archer/Rogue idea down the drain :-(
Yeah, ranged flanking doesn't exist pretty much because of Sneak Attack. The developers have been pretty consistent in not allowing anything that would enable consistent ranged Sneak Attack (with the exception of Ranged Feint). And Ranged Feint has problems since Feinting is normally a standard action (or move action with Improved Feint) and so you end up not being able to make multiple attacks and benefit from Feinting.
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Yeah, ranged flanking doesn't exist pretty much because of Sneak Attack. The developers have been pretty consistent in not allowing anything that would enable consistent ranged Sneak Attack (with the exception of Ranged Feint).
...and ranged attacks from concealment.
Sniping, invisibility, tiny hut, darkness + darkvision, magical darkness + see in darkness, fog cloud + fog vision, et cetera. Anything which allows the attacker to see the target, but not vice versa, enables ranged sneak attack. Much more effective than ranged feint in most cases.
True, but most of the magical version require someone else to set up or rely upon extra equipment, etc.
None of them are "easy".
How does a ranged feint even look like? Is it some kind of gnarly trickshooting? Are Ranged Feinters actually all Revolver Ocelot and do some crazy bolt/arrow/bullet ricochet ridiculousness?