Friendly fire still occurs in the difficulties higher than Normal. On hard and nightmare pausing for each action is the only way to succeed. The camera angle is ony an issue in my game when I can't see the entire area of effect of a spell like fireball. This slows the game down more as I spend time w/ trial and error,- more like guessing and hoping the party is outside the effects
On casual difficulty you can run through the game for hours with out pausing, definitely.