Sorry, I don't know much about Escalon, but I had a very similar experience with Baldur's Gate :

Eschalon reprises one of the problems that plagued the original Baldur’s Gate: encounters that always devolve into fights no matter what you say or do.

Given that the vast majority of players praises BG in general, I must say that I'm just surprised to find that I'm not the only one whosees it so (I thought I would).

BG was to me more or less a "combat simulation" : No matter what you said or did, you ended up in fights.

This is at least traditional, imho.

And this was the reason why I never much get through the game.

Don't know know it is with Escalon, though. Is fighting so much favoured ?