In PnP a rogue can concievably snipe a target from a rooftop in a city, while still being within sneak attack range. They can then dash across the rooftops, swing down a rope on the side of a nearby building, flee a couple of alleys then hide in shadows and the like there.
In NWN2, if you're within the engine's "30ft", there's no chance in hell you'll be escaping without HiPS. Or be on the rooftop. Or jump across rooftops. Or using a rope.
Who has less combat potential again? The character that can use a plethora of skills to escape a situation where they gave themselves the first strike opportunity, or the one who gets into melee less than 2 seconds after they fire their shot?
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The main issue I'm seeing here has already been indentified by many others. The ones arguing for the removal/massive gimping are primarily based in PnP. The ones opposed to such movements seem, on average, to have CRPG backgrounds. Just like Mayhem suggested.
In PnP, no matter what you're doing, no matter where you are, no matter who or what your character is, you
always have a DM with you.
It's just not feasible to take the same mindset into something like NWN2 because unless the DM:Player ratio is nearly 1:2, many, if not most, players are going to be doing things without a DM present.
In their CRPG incarnation, a rogue sucks at combat of all sorts. Melee, because that's just the way rogues are. Ranged, because ranged combat sucks in general in NWN2. The only factor that rogues have going for them is their dirty tricks. One of which is Sneak Attack. The other are the trap kits.
Now you might like to argue that rogues aren't entirely about fighting, and that may well be true. However this is a PW. And an adventurer focused PW as far as I can tell. Thus there will be combat. The only rogues that won't be engaging in combat at low levels will be those halfling characters entirely built around beating OEI's poorly designed stealth mechanics and even that can be done better by a bard/sorc. Traps are useful tools for low level rogues to survive. At higher levels they're still useful, but not nearly as much when you've got a much higher AB and better gear. They are not unbalancing because a) they give no xp for kills, b) anyone attempting to pull off trap spam kills in CvC would have the overseeing DM spank them with a Pit Fiend.
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However since it seems people are set on nerfing trap kits, why not something like this?
Have merchants sell Minor kits, and only Minor kits. Up the price if you really want to. However leave the creation of stronger trap types in the hands of PCs only. This will drastically reduce the number of powerful traps in the world. Moreover it'll mean that PCs will need to expend skillpoints in three seperate skills in order to get the maximum benefit of traps. Not to mention lots of gold and time to gather ingredients and the like, some of which may well be made craftable only by PCs! Or in certain regions where you need friends to travel! Rp opportunities! Shock, horror!
Also, if the time to set a trap is to be extended, make it reasonable. ALFA doesn't make PCs spend 56 minutes (8 IG hours) resting or memorising spells. It doesn't even make them spend 7 minutes. Thus expecting a trap kit to take that long to set is just silly. Twenty or maybe thirty seconds would be more than long enough time to prevent say, massive trap spam before an impromtu ambush, and to prevent the wild imaginings of people running around corners dropping traps (wouldn't happen at any rate considering how fast and far PCs move in NWN2).
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