I approve of most of these suggestions, but I feel the "Sneaking" in combat should be replaced by the Scoundrels invisibility skill.
I have never liked the idea of "walking behind someone, making a skill check" and suddenly I'm "Sneaking" and they are somehow unaware of me being behind them now.. It a silly mechanic no matter what game has it.. I'm looking at you D&D tabletop!!
I think, rather then change sneaks AP cost:
1. Sneak can be used "out of combat" only
2. Sneak has no AP cost because of 1
3. Gorilla (:P) now does 2 things.. ONE, any target you attack from sneak takes x5 Damage, putting it close to a "one shot" kill ability. and TWO it adds an additional 25% damage on all "Back Attacks".
So now, you can "Open" with a sneak attack to take out one target, and then proceed to backstab for additional damage. IMO a pretty fair tradeoff.
