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Allright, School is out, and in my boredom, I decided to paly through whatever CRPGs I haven't done yet. So I decided to do Temple of Elemental Evil.

Now, I'm an old hand at these games, and I know D&D more or less inside out. The question I have is this: Social Skills (all five of em). Do I need them? If so, to what ranks do I really need them? And which characters can I create to get them.

Looking through the manual, I can see that only Rogues and Bards are really good spokesmen. Problem is that I loathe bards, and I'm not terribly found of pure rogues either. So far, I have four characters created, and they are

Elf Dex-Based Spiked Chain Fighter
Half-Orc Strength-Based Greatsword Barbarian (18 Con, my tank)
Human Lawful Evil Cleric of Nerull, low Str, Goodcon and excellent Wis & Cha
Dwarf Generalist Wizard, again, good con, high intel

If need be, I would remake any of those, but I'd like to keep them the way they are.

For the fifth character, I had plans of starting as a rogue with 18 Cha and getting all the dialogue skills up as high as need be, then multiclass, probably no later then Rogue three. The question is, if I get 18 Cha, do I need all three levels of rogue (plus bonuses and minus feats, that gives me a skill level of ten in all of the dialogue things but sense motive, not counting syngergies). Is taht enough? Should I take a persuasive or negotiator feat to boost it up and spare a rogue level? (I plan to be human, so I'll have a feat to burn if need be). And lastly, what do I multiclass this guy into??? I'd like a druid since I enjoy the idea of having a jackal lope along, but getting the stats will be tricky, and I'm not sure if it'll be practical, let alone the roleplay problems of a rogue/druid. Sorceror gives me a familiar which can boost a necessary skill even higher, but I dont know if I need another arcane caster with a generalist wizard.

Any advice or assisstance at all would be appreciated.

Mods can really ramp up the quest difficulty, and thus the level you need your dialog skills to be at, but if you're not running a mod of that nature (Livonya's or the co8 mods that include it, for example), you won't need too much. What I typically do is get one character with an 18 cha (make him male - or else make sure some male in the party has a decent cha - if you've got a sorcerer, that'll work) and give him 3 levels of rogue. Max out all the dialog skills and his search, open locks, and disable devices, as best you can. With an 18 cha, that'll give him +9 in all five dialog skills and that's enough to do all the quests in the unmodded game. From there on I usually go fighter. F7/R3 is a pretty good build, especially with all the flanking you're able to do in ToEE - the extra +2d6 sneak damage is a major plus. Typically, I make this guy human and give him a decent intelligence. With fighter levels and maybe 14 intelligence, you'll be getting 5 skill points a level even as a fighter, which is enough to keep tumble and one other skill maxed out with another not far behind. All in all, not a bad build, and plenty for the dialog you need in an unmodded game.

Oh, and don't forget to give him the feathered cap.

I Dled and Installed the latest Co8 mod, what effect will that have?

Quests will be significantly harder in that version, I believe. I can't say exactly how much dialog and trap-defeating skills you'll need. On the bright side, I think much of the time there are multiple ways of completing the harder quests. High dialog skill may not always be required.

Sorry, but having not played it, I'm not the best person to ask.

Oh well, I'm using the Front-End thing, so I upped the number of characters to six (the standard number.. no idea why ToEE limits you with five), and should be fine. I'll probably keep him to rogue three, adda ll the synergies and a feat or two, and that should be fine.