Wow, Sarah, you playing the exact same character I play/played. Half-elven, high charisma/beauty (I chose the male portrait with that awesome chin-strap beard. wicked stuff!
)
Anyway, I'm shit at this game, I got bored with it and went back to playing fallout 2. There ya go, words of wisdom for ya
My friend finished it with a dwarven technologist. Apparently it was "the fuckin' way to go man". Big guns and all that. But then, my friend was very stoned, and somewhat smelly, when he told me this. So maybe it shouldn't be taken as gospel...
The way I see it, you've just gotta choose a 'style' of play and max it out to the fullest. No middle-ground playing. This is a game of extremes, you have to excell at a particular aspect in order to do well, whether it be guns, melee, spells, diplomacy, whatever. Choose a path (and by the sounds of it you've chosen diplomacy. Well done, a kindred spirit
) and stick with it. Get NPCs to compensate for your weak areas.