The Civil Abilities as a whole just don't work at all if you ask me. As it stands I'm making a mod that removes/replaces them among many other things - Feeling forced to only talk to people with one character, only trade with one character, or loot with one character (Last one was fixed luckily) just seems wrong in single player, and the effect is amplified in multiplayer.
Making every civil ability apply to all the characters in your party alleviates the issue but then just raises the question of why not just make the civil abilities automatic on level up, which then raises the question of why should they should even exist in the first place.
