1. Is there any way to bash doors/bash locks with a high strength character as an alternative to having a rogue?

2. Whenever I summon Familiar, expecting it to work like BG2, I just get an inventory item with the animal's portrait. When I try to use the item, it says "Failed to use item". In BG2 familiars were useful as scouts/spotters. Does it just not work in TOEE?

3. Are there any hotkeys for useful tactical moves like "Ready vs. Approach", "Total Defense", "Trip Attack", "Whirlwind Attack", "Counterspell" ?

4. Any way to increase the game's speed, or skip animations? The animations are great (try charming a female bugbear and watch the idle animation:)) but Id like to move along faster if possible.

I'm using the new content mod pack.

I haven't used the mod pack yet (but will very soon!), so my answers are not 100% for you, but probably work just the same.

1: I have never done this, so I honestly don't know. But a quick googling revealed people complaining that you couldn't bash doors or force chests, so it's probably a "no."

2: I'm not 100% sure here, either, but I'm pretty sure. BG and TOEE familiars are very different. Your familiar provides your character with skill boosts. So it's assumed your animal is staying safe while providing the bonuses.

3: You set all of your hot keys. If I remember correctly, right click on your character and get to the command you want to set a hotkey for. Then hold CTRL (I'm pretty sure, it could be another button though) and hit a key. For instance, go to Sneak, hold CTRL and S and now whenever you hit the S key, your selected character will go into sneak mode.

4: If there's not an option in the settings, then no. I can't remember disabling them. But check out the settings. There may be an option.

Very helpful answers, thank you Tallima!

Not sure about bashing, but I could have sworn the Barbarian class can do it. The Chaotic Neutral opening vignette has 2 chests and a door, so you could try and make chars to experiment and see if it works. Just remember some doors and chests are magically locked, so no amount of bashing is going to work on those anyways. But I am pretty sure the ones in the CNOV are non-magical.

Each familiar grants a different bonus. They should be listed in the pdf manual iirc. You can use the familiar as a scout by clicking its name on the radial backpack menu. I was told about and even shown a screenshot where the familiar has its own inventory, but I have never got this to work in my version (Co8 mod nc). You put it back in your pack by talking to it.

But using Sneak or the Ring of Invisibility works just as well for scouting, so imo the familiar is mostly useful for its skill buff.

See the full thread discussing familiars here.