In my current game after a fight I started to cast Read Magic and Identify on the loot. My Sorcerer did miscast several spells because of "defensive casting". Now I know how to stop defensive casting in the radial menu under options, however I wonder if defensive casting should be checked at all outside combat. Is there any reason for a spellcaster to cast defensively when not in combat?
Defensive casting is just to prevent attacks of opportunity against your caster when he attempts to cast within melee range of a baddie.
When defensive casting is completely useless outside of combat is there a way to have it automatically be used only during combat? Or is the only way to use the radial menu and manually check it on once combat starts and off once it ends to avoid miscasting due to defensive casting?
Unfortunately, no, ConjurerDragon. I've had to play by just having it off by default, and turning it on when I need to cast a spell in melee. Fortunately, at sufficiently high level you will automatically make your defensive casting check, so then you can have it on all the time.
that happens to me too, i usually turn off defensive casting in real time to prevent the miscast in casting read magic.