still having some days when i feel like all thumbs, but mostly better than at the first. Only a couple of issues and just to let you know i keep track of what's said here.

1. I can't kite worth a sock. A holey sock. A stinky used in gym class for a week sock. Basically my kiting is terrible. Have decided to keep Imoen as a thief and not dual class her so she needs to start commencing the stealthing already :)

2. I know for a fact i accidentally killed a couple of folks i wish i hadn't. One is a young girl north of BG bridge, although to be fair , I didn't kill her, Minsc did when i was running away to the lower map near the farm. The other is in Nashkel and he seemed like a store owner or caravan-er.Don't know much about that guy since he died so darn fast, some "lucky" dice roll and poof! So i think at worst, i will lose some Exp points for doing their chores, but i hope it isn't too much.

3. Does Boo do anything?

4. based on #2, I briefly flirted with the idea of starting over. I even placed all the saves in a separate folder and rolled a new character again. It took two days to realize i couldn't stand the idea of doing all that work again so I am going to just live with the consequences of my kills unless someone has a better plan. The saves have been put back in the right spot and i am continuing.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

All thumbs is okay. A thumb is all you need to hit the space bar. Space Bar is your friend. So is Auto-Pause. Learn it. Use it. Love it. You have all the time in the world when the game is paused.

Baldur's Gate was in a collection called, "Games You can Play with a Mouse in One Hand and a Beer an the other." Good call. Anything else messes up your plan. He takes a special slot, so Minsc only gets two slots. I am way too prone to starting over. I think you will have a whole list of things you wish you had done. However, if your reputation is still good and your characters are still getting powerful, you might as well play it through.

I won't answer all of your points, because KHHill91 has done that. I will make a couple of comments about 3 & 4, though:

Boo, as stated, takes up an inventory spot, but he doesn't 'do' anything except squeak if clicked on.

About starting over, it's kind of the whole point of a game like BG (unless you're a power gamer), that you make decisions and stand by the consequences, so you made a good call there. If all you do is restart if you make a bad call, it lessens the game immensely.

Xan is an Enchanter specialist mage. Not dual-classed (or multi-classed, rather, since he's an Elf) but he does have a fairly nifty unique magic sword that gives him fire resistance, iirc. Too bad he is too squishy to use it effectively.

As an enchanter, Xan is a good support mage, but he can't cast Conjuration/Summoning spells like Summon Creature and Flame Arrow. This isn't a big problem, really, as you can find wands of monster summoning. As a neutral character he fits in most parties.

Dynaheir is an evoker/invoker, which means she can't cast those support spells like Summon Creature either, but in addition she can't cast Enchantment spells like Sleep, Confusion, etc. This makes her a rather poor mage, for my money. She's good-aligned.

(Jabba says that Evokers can't cast offensive spells like Fireball and Magic Missiles. This is true in Baldur's Gate 2, modded Baldur's Gate 1 and possibly in the Enhanced edition, but NOT in vanilla Baldur's Gate 1. But even if in your game Xan can't cast fireballs, I still think Enchanters are better than Evokers, since you can also find lots of fireball and lightning wands and disabling spells are really good in BG1.)

The best mage you can get is Edwin, i.m.o., since he gets a ton of bonus spells, has a good INT score, and the only spells he can't cast are unimportant. (Identify, mostly) He's evil, though, and doesn't play well with Minsc or Dynaheir.

Xzar isn't bad either, as a Necromancer. He cannot cast Illusions, which is to say spells like Mirror Image and Invisibility. This is annoying, but not crippling. But he's also evil, and his voice-set annoys me.

Personally I like to use two mages in Baldur's Gate so I can get access to all spells. It's probably easier to stick with one if you're new to the game, though, as mages require a lot of micro-management and die easily.

Bottom line: if you have a good mage who fits in your party alignment-wise already, you don't need Xan. Otherwise he's a useful addition.

That's true...

:)

...although, I prefer to puff on a Cuban cigar than slurp a beer!

:D

For me, that's what made dual-classing Imoen worth the trouble. Two pure mages make it difficult to balance a party. Having one of them also be my thief made it a lot easier.

Multiclassing (or dual-classing) your thief definitely helps with party composition, though I much prefer the fighter/thief combination. Unfortunately in BG1, that pretty much means either making a fighter/thief PC (not a bad idea, actually) or using Montaron.

2 fighters, 1 cleric, 1 thief and 2 mages also works, though in this case it helps if that cleric is a fighter/cleric. Yeslick, for example. Again though, for new players I'd recommend sticking with just the 1 mage and forgetting about dual-class mechanics because those are confusing.

Final option: bring a bard. On the downside, they are weak. But on the plus side, they gain levels quickly, can cast spells from all schools and you'll never have to cast Identify ever again. No power-gamer would bring one, because... well, they kinda suck*, but they're pretty good utility value in a 6 person party.

*)Unless it's BG2 and you have a Blade kit.

I like 2 mages, thief, cleric, 2 fighters or fighter+bard (though that can be a little rougher depending on builds.) 2 mages makes it so you have such an extensive spell-option pool and it makes everything that much easier to deal with IMO, with buffs, debuffs, offensive spells (focus + AE), and all the other misc, helpful things, it's worth it. Dual-classing the thief is an okay option but makes both ultimately weaker and is unnecessary.

Sometimes it really is okay to start over, especially once you've gotten the hang of how a game goes and you want to do it better, sometimes it can screw you a bit in the end because you just aren't as strong as you could be if you'd have done things differently (getting more XP by doing things differently on top of making better choices with your leveling up decisions.) But really, it is all up to you, and it can be quite daunting to feel like you have to do what you already did over again. My suggestion for that, if you really do want to start over, is to give yourself time away from playing, and then get back to it, it should be easier to start from the beginning if you do that.

BG has so much wilderness, unless you've done 80% of the locations south of Baldur's Gate city, it's not TOO much to start over, it is just a long time to get through the wildnerness areas anyway and can feel like it's taking a while, but just keep doing one map at a time, having fun with each map, and move on to the next!

How does your journey go?

It's not going too badly. I have had a couple of hiccups, with getting my GOG and CDPR accounts linked (still in progress) and then a friend needed a little help with TWEE and KotOR2, so ....

Other than a few distractions, it seems i found a stable party. I need to go to the last couple of wilderness areas on the left side of the map, then into BG proper if all the hints that are pointing me that way are understood correctly. Loot is everywhere and i dutifully slay then clean the area, like a boyscout :)

Thanks for the interest and for asking