happyelf

If you want tactics, then you want roles, even if classes aren't locked into them.

Athkatla was probably my favorite part of either of the BG's. A lot of it had to do with ambient sound and other factors, but the way that a 2d map could lay out a sprawling, tangeled city was just really appealing.

Along with shapeshfiting, the 'conjure everything' quality of 3e dnd spellcasters gave them enormous power and versatility in many situations. When you get access to an entire bestiary, you tend to be able to achieve some truly game-breaking effects. While it's true that art assets could be re-used, making monsters work as 'pets' does take some design work in order the balance the results. I think a more interesting option would be either a suite of well-tested conjurable creatures from the existing bestiary, or some kind of cusomizable conjured elemental that you could tweak when conjuring it to make it larger/smaller, faster/stronger, or posessed of other qualities.

There are several tabletop RPGs which have 'social combat' or comparable systems. The question is, wether the design and structure of a 'gameable' conversation or debate system would clash with the ad-hoc and freeform dialogue that Crpgs tend to use.