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Point Blank Shot gives +1 to attack and damage within 15 ft instead of 30 ft.
Precise Shot No longer has the prerequisite of Point Blank Shot.
Or perhaps even Point Blank Shot has the prereq of Precise Shot. (Precise Shot seems more necessary in-game than Point Blank.)
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Considering that archers (whether Fighter builds or Ranger builds, or other) are dramatically more powerful than front line combatants, both due to their number of attacks (with Rapid Shot & Manyshot, etc.) and because they are not up in the front line actually taking hits or often even risking getting hit, I thought bringing them a bit closer to combat (15 feet) might be a bit more balancing. Plus, why is one a prereq for the other?!
Thoughts?....
I think you have the idea backwards. Precise shot is an overly strong feat and point blank shot is merely so-so. If I changed anything, it'd be to reduce the bonus granted by precise shot.
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Personally, I agree with W E Ray. While I didn't change the PBS and PS feats, I do enforce cover rules so that pesky front-liners are providing cover for the enemies. I do remove Manyshot from my home games.
This... If you want to balance ranged vs melee enforce cover rules. The rules are in place to keep the game balanced (note NOT FAIR). If you do not run one of the core rules to balance ranged characters they will be overpowered. There's also a reason you need the +11 BAB and other requirements to get Improved Precise shot. That is the same time the Melee are getting high volume attacks and such to keep up with the ranged attacks that no longer have to even worry about soft cover.
Also have your bad guys use their brains for more than just the melee fight. If they can gain cover from 2 archers going full attack by provoking one AoO from a melee... DO IT!
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Changing PBS from 30 ft to 15 ft won't change all that much. Now, spellcasters are adept at casting spells if they get into melee (5 ft step). Archers will be the same, and a +1 hit/damage is not that big of a bonus. If I were playing an archer with that modified feat, I wouldn't try all that hard to get that close, and it if ended up that way, then bonus for me. :)
My major complaint with archery is that it has exactly one feat tree with only a couple of small branches higher up.
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My complaint is that you can't build an archer unless you get Precise Shot. So, in order to be at all playable -- not maximized or even merely efficient -- "playable," you have to have Precise Shot. And so you have to have Point Blank.
It's the same with a Cleric who plans on Channeling as part of the build, you have to get Selective Channeling and a solid CHA. There is no other possible way to build the PC. Now there are certainly Cleric builds that don't rely on Channeling to be playable; they're effective PCs using something else.
But to be an archer (whether Ran, Ftr or other), your build HAS to include Precise Shot.
So I looked to tinker with the RAW to make Precise Shot the first in the Feat tree and noticed also that "Point Blank" is just kinda dumb from 30 feet; it ought to be 15 feet.
My complaint is that you can't build an archer unless you get Precise Shot. So, in order to be at all playable -- not maximized or even merely efficient -- "playable," you have to have Precise Shot.
That's not true though. It's just that the bonus from Precise Shot is so high, that you'd be foolish not to go for it. If you lowered the bonus from Precise shot to +2, it wouldn't feel nearly as necessary.
Point Blank Shot gives +1 to attack and damage within 15 ft instead of 30 ft.
Precise Shot No longer has the prerequisite of Point Blank Shot.
Or perhaps even Point Blank Shot has the prereq of Precise Shot. (Precise Shot seems more necessary in-game than Point Blank.).
Considering that archers (whether Fighter builds or Ranger builds, or other) are dramatically more powerful than front line combatants, both due to their number of attacks (with Rapid Shot & Manyshot, etc.) and because they are not up in the front line actually taking hits or often even risking getting hit, I thought bringing them a bit closer to combat (15 feet) might be a bit more balancing. Plus, why is one a prereq for the other?!
Thoughts?....
If you think archers are too powerful, I think you'll find removing Point Blank Shot from their required feat chain is just going to make them more powerful earlier.
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My change to Point Blank Shot is to let the Sneak Attack class feature "count" as it for feat pre-requisites. The reasoning is three-fold:
1) Archery is already a powerful style and deserves to be feat intensive.
2) Sneak Attack is thematically identical to Point Blank Shot.
3) Bitty boost for Rogues.
So, your 1st level Rogue (of any race) can start their career being a specialist at shooting into a melee (Point Blank Shot), shooting with incredible speed (Rapid Shot), or shooting from incredible distance (Far Shot).
Furthermore, I also allow "Sneak Attack +3d6" to count for "BAB +6" pre-requisites for the Improved Precise Shot feat (yes I lowered the BAB from +11 to +6 to allow Fighters to keep up with Rangers), and generally allow sneak attack dice to count for twice it's dice number in BAB for other feats that I find thematic for a Rogue (like Improved Critical, Lunge, and Pinpoint Targeting).
I also do similar things with Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge.
To answer your last question, W E Ray, I think the idea is that you better be able to hit a target at 10 meters away [i]really well[i/] before you begin practicing anything else tricky.