Fuck Yeah Baldur's Gate

I know the feeling! After years of bouncing off fallout 1 and 2, I finally completeted them this year so with that in mind here's a few tips.

1.) Use a walkthrough. It might feel a bit cheaty but honestly this is what saved me with Fallout 1 and 2 because I just didn't know where to go or what to expect in combat. There will be spoiler free ones avaliable given the age of BG so don't be afraid to just look something up if you don't know where to go next.

2.) In BG1 specifically ranged weapons are king, equip ranged weapons on everyone as some enemies can easily be defeated before they reach you or can be kited around the map until they are dead. Just watch out for the bandits as this won't necessarily work on them if they also have a ranged weapon.

3.) if you find it a pain in the ass to give instructions to everyone then try assigning some AI to your characters so they start attacking automatically although make sure you read through what the AI does because some will switch to melee automatically. You can toggle the AI on and off if you want to take control directly for particularly hard fights.

4.) Check out the auto pause functions in the settings. What I tend to find useful is autopause for when a character reaches low health, when someone spots a trap and immunity to weapons.

5.) Pick up the tweak pack at Gibberlings3 https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/tweaks/tweaks/ Now I usually say for first time players don't install mods but the tweak pack contains a lot of quality of life changes that do make your life easier in the long run and as a veteran player I always pick it up. Make sure you read the read me file though for an explanation of each feature, you can skip sections I.e. Content changes or rule changes if you don't want to have to go through them all.

6.) Skip BG1 altogether. While I love BG1, it's also a bit lighter on story and NPC content to the point that if you are really struggling with it then go straight to BG2, which is considered the best of the series. It's also much tighter in terms of locations e.g. Much less random wilderness areas without a whole lot in them. It does a fairly good job at the start of catching you up to speed right in the opening too.