It can. For example, on three different playthroughs, I did three different things and had three different results:
1. Saved the guys, got the password went down and was able to speak normally with the people in the cavern.
2. Got the guys killed, took the iron flask from the chest, and went down there. Once they realized I emptied the chest, they attacked.
3. Went down without ever talking to the guys guarding the chest from the gnolls, talked my way in, and was a bit limited in what I could do (specifically with the trader, who held back goods because I wasn't in their good graces).
I also experienced a bug between the last hotfix and the one before it, where I had to try multiple times to get down the stairs behind the wardrobe because I kept being teleported out (it would start transitioning, then I would walk out from where I was trying to walk into).