Ok thanks both, that's cool.
What I meant about the thug assault thing is that as far as I understand it, you have to commit the 1 assault to progress from the starter area. But now I've been playing for a while (level 5 now) I can see it's not gonna be a big deal.
About the personality, yeah it could screw up combat if even bad guys liked you too much. All I meant was, maybe there were times where you could, say, acquire extra help from a castle's guard, or royalty, during a quest, if you had high enough personality.
Man this game is so Epic!! I would quite happily pay for it! Hope Skyrim is this good!