I'd say, put the grind in. Fast forward through boring parts if you can be bothered. If not, we can skip it ourselves during watching. No biggie.
Anyway, what kind of build are you planning to go with? I (not so) humbly suggest raising combat stats a bit, but then switching to Intelligence and raise party skills for leader bonuses. Your companions will level up very slowly on foot with no ranged weapons so they will be useless for party skills for a very long time. You will level up much faster. With your fighting ability you don't need stats to be good at combat, so invest in party skills instead.
At least that's what I would do.