I had those exact same problems with Liam and the guy in the burning room (Benryn?), but didn't have any problems with Halsin in the goblin encampment - he turned elven and spoke to me at normal. With respect to the first two issues, I'm playing single player, so it's not your two characters that are causing those issues. I see that someone has also reported in another thread an issue with some of the characters in the druid grove not moving where they should after certain trigger points too, so this seems to be more general.
