How to disable traps properly?

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

Right, So I've died for the second time in the last 24 hours, lulzy mid 7 to the beginning of 5. Of course, this time I died to NWN pathing.
 
First time playing a character that disables traps for the majority of his time when he's on adventures, so I don't know all the tricks Veteran Trappers use to trick and navigate the engine into doing what they want. All I do is get close to the trap, Right-click the trap until the trap-disabling radial comes up, and click the appropriate Icon.
 
What happened just less than fifteen minutes ago is that there was a Deadly (or, well, I took 99 damage, so I think it was deadly) Fire Trap upon the bridge. Only a very slim part of the trap showed up, which is typical of certain traps upon odd terrain, like the bridge in the moutains on the way to the crystal caves.
 
After right-clicking about.... 15-20 times, I finally got the radial to pop up. And so I clicked Disable Trap. This resulted in Walther walking straight into the trap, taking 99 damage, and dying instantly.
 
After asking about it, I was then told by the DM that it was my fault, and to never trust Bioware pathing, though I was allowed to respawn via Fugue NPC (Was considering not respawning or possibly perma, but rolled a decision d20 and got a 20, so I respawned, heh). So I'm out even more xp... However, he's only doing his job, so it's completely understandable.
 
With all this said. -How- does one disable a trap like that without triggering Bioware AI Pathfinding glitches that make you run into the trap like a car into a brick wall? If you can't disable a trap like that, how are we supposed to know? More information like this would be appreciated, I'm sure...
 
As I don't feel like dealing with anymore bullshit deaths from AI pathfinding :p

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

I blame the DM on this one. If you cannot see the entire trap it is his fault.

[BrittanyPanthas]

Inch as close to it as you can usually with W, S, A, D, it minimizes odd pathfinding errors.

[Mort]

You can't trigger a disable trap too far from a trap, your idiot char might walk on it as he gets closer. You have to be fairly close to the trap already so that he wont move on his own to go disable it.

Easy to look out for, but the first mistake is costly, I admit!

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

Thomas_Not_very_wise: I'm reluctant to blame the DM off the bat, as I'm sure this has to somehow do with "Accepted Glitches in NWN that everyone seems to know about except me" :p. Most likely my own ignorance, hence I'm trying to rectify the problem.
 
That... and another DM about a week and a half ago laid traps on the harpy quest during some spice near the edge of the cliff where the visible part could barely at all be seen, and could barely be disabled using the radial. When I informed the DM about that, he said that this was intentional that they're not easily seen by the player's eyes and to be hard to click on.
 
BrittanyPanthas: Was pretty close to it. Does the location of where you pull up the radial on the trap have any effect on how the PC approaches it?
 
Mort: How far is "too far"?

[FleetingHeart]

Yep. Stand as close as you can to the edge of the trap before attempting any actions on it. My first trapper died quite frequently when I did not do this. NWN Engine has a tendancy to walk you to the dead center of a trap before it attempts the action you selected. :-(
 
When all else fails... Use a rat.

[Relinquish]

Avoiding putting traps on weird terrain works too, but in that specific case there was no other place to put them.

[Letsplayforfun]

Stand close to the trap before you click on it, else the autopath might get you to trigger it. And of course, try not to do that during combat...

[VonVonnen]

Actually, interesting tidbit.
 
The new party system or whatever makes it that, if no hostile action is being taken against yourself or by yourself, but combat is still very close to your current position, you can still take 20 on trap checks.
 
This probably is coupled to the reason why nothing's showing up in your combat logs either.

[Nightshadow]

Been playing NwN for years now, since '03 or '04, I think, and nothing has ever annoyed me more than the buggy pathfinding stuff where sometimes one walks in a circle for 10 seconds before actually continuing 20 feet to where I clicked. I've never once triggered any sort of trap due to walking over it while I"m just trying to disarm/flag/examine/recover it (I guess I'm lucky)... But my advice is to not use WASD at all when dealing with traps, it doesn't allow as much precision as clicking and clicking/holding does. While maneuvering in combat WASD should always be used, you trigger less AoO's and can get into better flanking positions (flanking is very important! Always have one guy on each side of an opponent, especially spellcasters, makes it so that they can run so easy, among other things). Keep it to small increments of movement (never longer your character is tall), and when you're in an area with traps never go very quickly (no running! best to go stealth+detect mode in the more dangerous areas), or you'll die a horrible, painful, brutally quick death.

Even in a combat area on a server like this with no parties, never disarm traps unless absolutely necissary for yours and your friends' survival, all it takes is one archer/fireball/whatever to hit you and you've got a deadly electric trap bouncing through the battle (isn't evasion/improved evasion nice?).

Traps are the most deadly things (next to death magic and Scythe weilding bard/rdd/wm's) that you'll ever encounter on any server.