I have just finished installing Baldur's Gate the Original Saga and the EasyTuTu mod.

I am just asking for some tips on how I should set up my character, race, class, skillpoint distribution and how should I act under battle?. Just looking for some nifty tips and tricks.

I will be very greatful for any advice. Thank you all in advance.

- Happy holidays!

Race - some classes have race restrictions; beyond that, just pick what you like.

Stats -

STR (Strength) - max it out for anyone you plan to put into melee, 9 or 10 for everyone else.
DEX (Dexterity) - Max this, as it affects your Armor Class (chance to avoid attacks)
CON (Constitution) - Max it for warrior characters (fighters, paladins, rangers, barbarians); 16 for everyone else, as they don't get any benefits above 16.
INT (Intelligence) - Max it for mages and bards; useless for everyone else.
WIS (Wisdom) - Max it for clerics and druids, useless for everyone else.
CHA (Charisma) - Not really needed for any character, as it only slightly affects NPC's reactions to you; any issues with that can be solved by putting whichever party member has the highest CHA in the top slot of your party.

If you're making a multiclass or dualclass character, apply the info from both classes. (i.e., cleric/mages want max INT and WIS)

Multiclass characters - start with two (or three) classes. Must be non-human. Experience is split between the classes equally. (A fighter/mage who gets 100 experience will get 50 xp in fighter and 50 xp in mage.)

Dualclass characters - start as one class, then switch to a second class; they stop gaining experience in the first class, and all new experience goes to the second class. Must be human. When they dual, they will lose all abilities from the first class (except HP) until their second class level is higher than their first class level, at which point the abilities are regained. (A level 5 fighter who duals into mage will lose all fighter abilities until they reach level 6 as a mage.)

For both multi and dualclass characters - abilities are restricted somewhat.
- Thieving abilities can only be used in studded leather armor or lighter.
- Clerics and druids are restricted to using cleric or druid weapons (so if you dual into a cleric or druid, any weapon points you previously put into weapons they can't use are wasted.) This isn't an issue with multiclass characters, as you simply won't be allowed to put points into restricted weapons.
- Mages can't cast spells in any armor except for mage robes and elven chainmail; note that this doesn't apply to cleric or druid spells, so if you've got a cleric/mage multiclass, putting armor on will only disable mage spells.


For your first game, I'd recommend a warrior type class (fighter, paladin, ranger, barbarian), as they have a much easier time surviving early game when you're just learning the ropes.
- Give everyone a missile weapon of some kind (bows, slings, whatever they can equip and have points in), and let them plink away at melee enemies until they get in range of your melee fighters. This also ensures that you won't accidentally draw more enemies into the fight by running forwards.
- Target enemy spellcasters first, as a Sleep, Hold Person, or Confusion spell can lead to a total party wipe if you're unlucky; conversely, keep yours protected, and don't hesitate to cast those spells yourself.
- When you're crawling through a dungeon or mine, always have your thieves checking for traps! Also do this if you're in an area with a lot of spiders, as they like laying web traps.

Lastly, SAVE OFTEN. This game isn't afraid to drop tough fights on your party, and you often won't know they're coming until they're on top of you. You can also use stealth (with a thief or ranger) or an invisibility spell from a mage to scout ahead.

Some thoughts, including reiterating some important points that have already been mentioned:

Create a new, unique save when you are about to change areas.

Make use of the pause feature during battle. Select movement and combat actions while the game is paused to save yourself a big headache in more difficult encounters. Using the auto-pause feature can be extremely helpful. I recommend using auto-pause on enemy sighted, on trap sighted, on weapon broken, and on ammo depleted.

Ranged weapons are your friend. Particularly early in the game trying to stand toe-to-toe usually means you end up spending less time in the field and more time recovering. Learn to kite (run a character about to be attacked away from the fight and let the enemy chase him while another character shoots at it). Learn not to get too spread out, however, and wind up pulling more enemies.

It's quite possible to run into battles that will be just too hard for you at a given stage in the game. This is an intended feature of the game's world design. Run and/or avoid the battle, level up, and come back later.

Enemy spell casters can be extrremely deadly and usually should be neutralized or removed from the battle as soon as possible. Ranged enemies will often be the next priority.

Save identical items to sell in bulk later. The game's story/economy system offers diminishing returns to vendored items. It's better to, for example, fill up a character's inventory with looted longswords and sell them all at one price than to sell them one or two or five at a time at diminishing values. You can make use of the chests and barrels to store your loot.

The typical first-time-through recommendation is a fighter, but I found it took playing a thief and trying to keep him alive while also using him as a primary damage dealer and utility character for me to really begin grasping the mechanics at the tactical level.

Play a sorcerer. Arcane magic is overpowered in the game, sorcerers are most powerful, unavailable as NPCs and can cast spells spontaneously without the "know before resting which spells you're going to cast next day" metagaming nonsense.

Just create a sorcerer with 18 str (for carrying capacity ), 18 (19 if elf) dex for AC and ranged attack bonus, 16-18 con for HP, 9+ int for using scrolls, 3 wisdom since it's useless and 18 cha for better quest rewards.

Arcane magic may be overpowered, but not until mid levels, and playing a mage PC would probably be overwhelming for a beginner, not to mention one single lucky hit is enough to kill you.

Also, I don't really like sorcs in BG 1&2, because imo, there are more useful spells at each level than they are allowed to learn, especially for levels 4, 5 and 6.

And frankly, if you want an overpowered char, starting as a human fighter with at least 17 int and 15 strength, then dual-classing him to wizard around lvl 9 makes for a more powerful character than a sorcerer.


On-topic:
My suggestion would be to designate a tank (a fighter PC with 18 dex and con works best, but Minsc or Kivan or Coran can do fine too), give him the best armor you can buy and let him attract all the enemies by positioning him far in front.
Equip all your other characters with bows, or slings if they can't use bows, then shoot down all the enemies.
For enemies which are too hard to tank at low levels (ogres and such), just make the tank run around so they can't hit him and keep shooting them.

Your main advantages before you get more levels and magical equipment are the stupid AI of enemies and the fact that your characters move faster than most enemies, so use that.

2 words ranged weapons the more use a bow the more easier it gets.

I/m always torn up about deciding weapon proficiency during chargen. I mean, should I specialize right from the get-go, or is it a poor choice to distribute the 4 points (for fighter) among 4 different prof's (one per proficiency)?

Having the proficiency bonus early can be a huge help, since your Thac0 will be pretty low. I don't know why you would need to be mediocre with every weapon type, since they're all pretty similar to each other. Plus there are only a few decent weapons for each type, so it's much better to specialize each character when you can.

Personally, when I make a fighter char, I put 2 in large swords and 2 in bows.
After that, I'll put 1 point in blunt weapon, then everything else in swords.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING FOR NEW PLAYER!!!
Learn at least the basic of AD&D 2nd edition rule set especially THAC0.

AC (Armor Class) should be as low as possible, preferably go into minus (-9 if possible), modifiable with armor/equipment or spells.

THAC0 (your percentage To Hit AC 0) also should be as low as possible, modifiable with weapon or spells.

The third number that also should go as low as possible is Saving Throw (your AC toward magic/spell/trap etc.), but unlike AC or THAC0, it's only modifiable by spell or scrolls, each Class have different Saving Throw progression, so there's not much you can do about it.

I played a fighter (switched to kensai)/mage dualclass on my first playthrough. He was neither as fun nor as powerful as the sorcerer I played in my second run.

I take it you're talking about a dps fighter rather than a tank because, from what I understand, you'll have to where mage's robes in order to cast anything.

Maybe because you knew more about the game the second time and were able to use the sorc more effectively?

Here are the objective reasons why a fighter/mage is better than a sorc:

He's got more than twice the hp (10+4 hp/lvl vs 4+2 hp:lvl)

He's got a lot better equipment options; some shields are really powerful, as are swords

I prefer playing a berserker, not a kensai (since kensai is only really good at high levels), so you have an ability to get immune to just about every status effect for a while, which is really useful in some fights.

You don't have to either waste spells on weak enemies or be mostly ineffective in those fights, since you can hit things much better than a pure wizard.

If you use your self-only defensive spells (like mirror image, blur, stone skin, etc...), then put on armor, you can become an almost unhittable tank from the beginning.

The only disadvantage is that you lose some spells per level, but fights which last long enough to make you run out of spells are pretty rare in the first place, unless you're soloing. And unlike the sorc, a fighter/mage is still useful after running out of spells.

You underestimate the power of sorcerers. To cover all the sorcerer casting options with a mage you'd have to memorize 30 spells per level, you only get 5.
In a party game specialization is important, your character fills a role and should be as good as possible in it.
It's not too important if your party gets 10 or 11 attacks per round (a sorcerer with good physical stats in combat without spells isn't useless btw)) but the party's access to more and better arcane spellcasting depends on only 1, at most 2 characters.

That's just plain not true.
If you know the game well, you'll know in advance what spells you'll need for any given encounter, meaning that the sorc's ability to not need to prepare is pretty much useless.

If you don't know the game well, you'll likely make some suboptimal choices when it comes to what spells your sorc knows, therefore making him weak.

And yes, a sorc, no matter what his stats are, is pretty much useless in melee compared to a fighter of the same level (as is pretty much every class but ranger, paladin and monk for that matter).
It's a matter of Thac0 progression, access to decent weapons, access to weapon specialization and the fact that nobody but fighter classes gain additional attacks per level.

Even if you know the game well you don't know how the combat rolls will be and which needs will arise from it.