I know the BG series has a reputation for being fairly difficult, especially in this day and age when many RPG's are made for a more casual crowd. But I'm more than halfway through my first playthrough of BG1 and the game simply fails to challenge me on any level.

Around chapter two I started noticing that I would absolutely steamroll every enemy encounter on the hardest difficulty level. Due to the enormous amount of side quests I was already level 4 when entering the Nashkel mines - an area I remember being difficult as a kid - and maybe that was a mistake, but hey, the game gives you access to a ton of optional areas that any RPG completionist worth his salt would explore: This results in massive overlevelling and no challenge whatsoever.

I picked up this game because I remembered challenging tactical encounters that would require you to prepare for each battle: Which potions do I use against this wizard who stunlocks my characters, how do I deal with this enemy thief wearing boots of speed and using poison attacks, how do I best counter the dryads charming my male party members, etc. But no planning or tactics are required. I click on my enemies, my overpowered party starts shooting and hacking away and I sit back, sip some coffee, eat some popcorn and watch the show.

In my 30+ hours of playing, there have been a total of 3 or 4 challenging encounters. Half of them in the very beginning and the other half in Durlag's Tower (an excellent piece of dungeon crawling and basically what the entire game should have been difficulty wise).

All of this is not helped by the enormous amount of trash mobs you have to clear in each of the game's 30+ areas. I cannot begin to describe how bored I am of the same gibberlings, xvarts, gabblydooks and goblidoinks you run into every five seconds when 'adventuring' in the wilderness.

So, uh. Am I completely off the mark here? Do I sound like an elitist powergamer? Or am I onto something? I feel really, really disappointed by the lack of difficulty, but it's not a topic I've seen brought up many times.
I'm playing the enhanced edition, by the way. Beamdog didn't lower the difficulty or inflate the XP rewards or something, did they?

For those who are willing to pay attention to how things work, at some point the games will become easy, once you're familiar enough with the mechanics. Even the second game with many inherently powerful enemies (liches, dragons, etc.) will be easy if you know what you're doing.

Some spells, items, and mechanics are flat out broken in vanilla games. Some enemies theoretically should be stronger and have way better immunities and defenses than they are implemented in the games. You just need to figure out what works and what doesn't. The more casual players usually just don't have the time or the inclination for that.

I always play with mods like SCS and Ascension with all "Improved/tougher [something something]" components installed, as well as Spell Revisions and Item Revisions which improve game balance across the board, and I still find the game easy as long as I prepare properly for encounters.

I have played with other "tactical challenge" type mods in the past, and they can be pretty tough, but more often than not, I find them silly and cheesy, and there is almost always some way to hard counter these counters. Once you figure that out, it is no longer hard. Try the "Improved Ilyich" mod by Les Reimer (included in the Tactics mod). The Ilyich fight can be ridiculously hard with this mod, but then you can use a Charm spell to charm the cleric (Zhivago) when he's casting Summon Fallen Deva, resulting in both him and his Deva becoming your ally, and they will clear the entire first floor for you, not just Ilyich's group. So yeah, that's what I meant by even though these modded encounters are "tough", they can be silly as hell and once you find out how to hard counter them, they really lose the novelty.

But anyway, if you're still playing vanilla games, I recommend mods that I mentioned above: SCS, Ascension, Spell / Item Revisions, and some other such as aTweaks, Rogue Rebalancing, Refinements, Tactics, Revised Battles, etc.

Are you playing BG1 Classic or BG:EE? EEs made the game VERY easy compared to the original since it uses BG2 Engine.

Also, there is something I tell my students: "Everything is hard if you don't know and everything is easy once you know", which the previous user also mentioned. D&D games are challenging for any newcomer but once you finish it once and get the ropes, the later playthroughs become piece of cake.

Baldur's Gate in Baldur's Gate II engine is easier. I don't know why. This applies to all Tutu variants and of course the Enhanced Edition. The Enhanced Edition makes some minor changes that makes the game even easier, although not by much.

That said, even if you play the original Baldur's Gate unmodded there's still a tons of way to break the game and make it really easy.

Huh. How come the BG2 engine makes it easier? Does anyone know why?
Aside from the obvious fact that it's more zoomed out and pauses in the inventory screen.

- Pause in inventory.

- You have access to weapon styles and dual weapons. Weapon styles let the character be better at the weapons they specialize in, instead of wasting proficiency stars on different weapons they're not gonna use anyway.

- Rogues can now set traps.

- Having access to kits means you get a bunch of special abilities / advantages that don't exist in vanilla BG. Berserker's Enrage, Assassin's Poison Weapon, Blade's Offensive/Defensive Spin, for example.

- You have access to powerful new spells. Doom, Armor of Faith, Summon Insects, Holy Smite, Unholy Blight for clerics. For mages, even in BGEE you still have access to a few, like Minute Meteors, Sunfire, Minor Spell Deflection, and Stoneskin. If you play BGT or Tutu with mods, chances are you'll have access to even more.

- Characters move faster in BG2 engine. While this applies to everyone, it works mostly in the player's advantage.

- There are fixes and tweaks to mechanics and the way things work in general that mostly benefit the player. For example, Lightning Bolt and Fireball correctly bypass Mirror Image, Shield protects against Magic Missile, Agannazar's Scorcher hits multiple times (and also bypasses Mirror Image). If you play BGT with mods, there are also tweaks such as wearing multiple items of protection with magical armor.

- I believe you generally level up faster, because whether it is BGEE or BGT, there are more enemies to fight. You also get XP for picking locks, disarming traps, and learning spells.

- There are more magical items available in the game in general, whether imported from BG2, or added in by the EE's new content.

The bottom line is, if you play BGT or BGEE, without mods that improve general AI and combat difficulty to balance out the new advantages, the game is going to be ridiculously easy.

Also, class kits were added, which also favor the player.

And after all these changes, the game wasn't rebalanced.

Or so I hear. I only have ever played classic BG. Old school boyeee!

Virgin BG1 is pretty easy too. I did a few playthroughs with GOG's version, and it has similar balancing issues. My PC can one-shot most non-boss enemies. And I don't min/max or power game.

You'd all get a kick outta the other recent thread in these forums, created by tx3000. This dude couldn't figure out the BG tutorial. It's the opposite of this thread. And tx3000 goes on to call everybody else retarded. It's really funny.

It is easy if you have some experience with D&D or other infinity games. I do remember that when I played BG1 the first time in 1998 having no experience what so ever, I found it difficult. Especially the first half.

And if in your first playthrough you choose a spellcasting chcracter, then the game becomes quite challenging as you are extremely vulnerable before you level up and get some decent companions.

I don't know why. I've played it modded to deal with many of the points amazingchestahead mentioned (mod for lower walk speed, no xp from actions, not using kits and spells that weren't in the original BG). I'm convinced the RNG is just nicer.

Which I know isn't true of course. There is just something I can't identify that makes BG1 in BG2 engine easier.

While I appreciate this explanation, I don't think it suffices.

Right now, for example, I'm playing through the Candlekeep Catacombs. The entire first level consists of rooms with one or two doppelgangers, an enemy so weak that a level 3 party could probably wipe the floor with it. No groups of enemies, no mages, just low level trash that you kill like you take a leak.

Same thing goes for areas like Cloakwood where, aside from Wyverns, the toughest enemies you face are groups of spiders in threes and fours. Sure, some of them teleport and can be a nuisance if they happen to target your mage, but mostly they die really, really easily. I'm aware that the spiderweb traps make these encounters more difficult, but as soon as the first one goes off, it's a matter of routine to make your thief scout ahead to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Once in a blue moon you'll have a tough special encounter - like in the Iron Throne building -, but it's so exceedingly rare as to not matter. You could probably count the amount of fun battles in this game on one hand.

Yeah man, I've already installed Stratagems for BG2. :) Hopefully it will give me the experience I want.
I'm still dragging my way through 1, though. Is there any chance the mod will work if you install it midgame?

You asked why the game is *easier in BG2 engine*. My second post answered that question. As for "why the game is simply easy?", I already answered that with my first post. BG simply *is* an easy game. There may be a lot of rules to learn for those who are clueless about D&D, but the game was designed to be easy.

The list of changes between BG1 and BG2 engine does matter and piled up make for an easier game. Some of those do not raise the 'difficulty' directly, but make it harder to multitask in the original, like no pause in the inventory, maximum of 20 ammo stacks, slower character movement and characters blocking eachother in narrow passages. One change that's also important is that projectiles have been nerfed in BG2 engine and in BG1 some of the more dangerous enemies are archers - some players still have nightmares about bandit waylaid in early levels that would just wipe the floor with the party.

The list of minor things that add up is even longer: magic resist applying both for damage and healing spells (original), max hp on level up (BG2 engine), rest until healed (BG2), to name a few off the top of my head.

Is BG1 a difficult game? No, once you figure it out, as others have mentioned. If it's bothering you, then you can create self-imposed rules, like resting only when fatigued. If you want powergame, then mods are for that.