Counterpoint: You really shouldn't be able to talk your way out of every encounter. It should be a way you can make life easier for yourself and talk your way into some cool stuff, but, eventually, someone's gonna be out for blood and you're not gonna be able to sweet-talk your way out of two shotgun barrels between your vampire fangs. Though, I do think fallout 2 did this better than vtmb by having the dude at the end of the tutorial warn you, if you talk or sneak your way past him, that it's not going to work all the time and you're gonna have to fight your way past some things; it puts you in the proper mindset rather than "get to the sewers and if you haven't been leveling a combat skill then tough luck." Frank I'd say was really good as a final boss for showing off how this works in practice; you can hack the turrets, or persuade the enclave squad to help you, but at the end of the day it's gonna be a fight, and you can make it easier, but you can't avoid it because the final boss isn't interested in talking, and you HAVE to get your people off the oil rig, so, sneaking around him isn't an option. It might be for you, but all the civvies definitely can't do it.