Playmaker has a mouse pick action, which saves the vector, speed, object it is touching, etc (raycast). Then you get the vector of your player. With those two numbers you can figure out the distance. This can even then tell you if your mouse is above, below, left or right of the character by looking at the X, Y numbers, and whether they are positive or negative.
With those numbers in mind, you can make them into floats. There is a playmaker action for this as well.
Then do a float switch. Basically if the number is between is below -10, do this event. If below -5 do this event. If below -1, do this event, etc. (Such as change animation).
There is nothing that you said that I can see, that couldnt be done in playmaker.
Then use the mouse click event to fire off your shots (which would trigger another animation, or effects).