I just finished the first major quest, the one with the claw. It was frikken amazing, played in eyefinity.

I got back with a bunch of loot and the guy only wants to give me 1/5th of its worth. Thats just not right.

It occurs to me that money == skill. There are trainers that will give you skillups if you have gold, so obviously I want to get my moneys worth for all the loot I plunder.

Would it be smart to put a few talent points into the speech path early on in the game and spend alot of time running around and talking to people before doing any major quests?

I was able to finish the claw quest fairly easily, and with heavy armor and pots was able to survive. I did put a couple points into 1h weapon. I have the feeling that focusing on combat skills at this point would be overkill. Opinions?