Pangaea666 raised several valid points, especially regarding bestiary. The best way to learn things is to READ A MANUAL. When I first played BG1 which was all the way back in 1998 I spent a lot of time skimming though it.

The manual is actually of really high quality and reads very well. It is far from boring because it is written in an informal style of Volo, a character that actually appears in the game and is famous explorer. And here and there you have sarcastic interjections by Elminster

The Story for both games is good. The story for the second is even better.

The interface is intuitive, but individual results may vary.

The combat is extremely difficult. There's a significant learning curve, but mastering the game is fun. Understanding of ADnD and the systems numerous idiosyncrasies is imperative. It'll take some reading if you're not already familiar, but fortunately the manuals pretty much include the ADnD players manual for your convenience. You're gonna suck at winning when you first start playing. Fortunately there's immense pleasure in mastering the games combat as you figure out how to play.

I disagree and find the first game to be superior in that respect especially if you're going in blind without any foreknowledge.

BG1 is about the inner struggle between Good and Evil and that's what makes it so important. That's why the opening quote is so relevant.

Anyway, my advice to a new player would be to lower the difficulty and go for the class that looks the more enticing (bearing in mind that there are many class related limitations). BG is all about gathering a party so whatever you do you will find characters that will suit your needs.

Starting in BG bows are really powerful so that's something worth keeping in mind (it's much less true in BG2).

In original BG you got less XP at lower difficulty levels, so permanently playing at lower difficulty can be a receipt for disaster.
In the EE or BG2 it's no problem, you get full XP.

Good point. My mistake was to assume that at this juncture new players would be more likely to get started with the Enhanced Edition of the game.

*casts resurrect*
Okay, now I have to know what the different reasons are …! :|

In both these games:
* Scrolls are scarce, limiting the usefulness of arcane casters (especially if you have more than one in the party); furthermore, arcane casters (excluding Sorcerers in the EE) don't get to choose spells at level up. Clerics automatically get all their spells, and hence don't need to worry about this.

Icewind Dale:
* Undead are very common. Clerics get the ability to turn, and eventually destroy, undead.

Dungeon Hack:
* Most of what you find in the dungeon is random. This, in particular, includes the scrolls arcane casters need to learn spells. Clerics, however, get all their spells automatically on reaching the required level, significantly reducing their dependence on random drops; unlike other classes, a Cleric can do fine without any random drops.
* Normally, food is an issue in Dungeon Hack that you have to worry about. Clerics, however, get a spell (Create Food and Water) that negates this issue (also Heroes Feast later on).
* Spiritual Hammer is actually a really good spell. You get a hammer that can be thrown, that returns to you, and that is considered magical. If it wears off, just rest and summon another. Even better, you are guaranteed to get this, as well as the Magical Vestment spell (which you probably won't need). No matter how unlucky you are with item drops, you still get these spells to use.
* Many of the dangers of the dungeon can be negated with spells. You can cure poiso, for example. There's a spell to protect against being level drained (though sometimes level draining enemies may appear before you get that spell;/ that's far too early IMO). I think you can also get paralysis immunity.
* At least one possible final boss is not immune to Slay Living.
* The only important thing Dungeon Hack Clerics can't do is identify items.

Thanks. :)

I still have nightmares about those bloated corpses …

Another thing to note: These two stats only affect the chance to hit; they do not affect the damage that you do when the attack actually hits. This means that a character wearing plate mail has an easier time dodging attacks than an otherwise similar character not wearing armor at all. It also means that attacks that do hit will still do their full damage to characters wearing plate mail. I find this mechanic to not really make sense, it is different from the way many other RPGs (most notably JRPGs, but some WRPGs are like this) work, and the mechanic is essentially useless in Throne of Bhaal (where anything that uses physical attacks is going to hit, so AC is useless, making a large portion of the game's armor ineffective at protecting yourself).

By the way, at ToB levels especially, you should look for non-AC ways of protecting yourself, like damage reduction or spells like Mirror Image and Stoneskin (both good spells at any level where they're available, but don't expect Mirror Image to protect against the poison of a posionous bite, for example).

Question. Is there a Import Savegame option from BG 1 to 2 or only EE Feature for that you mayby even need SoD?

In the vanilla versions, there isn't an "Import Savegame" option, as such. You can export the BG1 (or BG2) character and then import that character into a new BG2 game.

I wanted to add some details here.

The spell-casting process can be quite opaque, at first. I found I was continually interrupting the characters spell-casting.

The interface will give you a visual clue (on the spellcaster's portrait), and the combat log will note when a spell has been cast (after the note that a character has begun to cast it). Do NOT try to do ANYTHING once a spell has been selected to cast, before it is cast, otherwise the spell is wasted. Some spells (not always higher level, e.g. the first level divine spell Bless) take a long time to cast.

Another tip for beginners is to sleep often. (As soon as there is a metric, I try to beat it; hence, because the game has a diary that records the passage of time, I always try to minimize the time spent. This means I will try to complete "just one more battle" before I sleep, and — without a full complement of spells and hitpoints — leads to unsurprising frustration.)

Finally, resurrection has no downside for a character. (Some early P&P rulesets took a point of CONstitution off, but not these games.) The only consideration is cost, and a rod will obviate that.