I've played the original Baldur's Gate on-off since it was new, made multiple starts at it, but between a combination of computer deaths and distraction by other interests I've never actually finished the darn thing myself; the farthest I've ever gotten was entering the Nashkell Mines. People fixating over BG3 prompted me to get back to it once more, only to discover (to my annoyance) that I couldn't get my current copy (the Windows XP-era 3-disc version) to install on Windows 10. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft.

After failing to quickly find a fix, I bought the GOG release since it was heavily on sale and included the original edition as a bonus. After getting the original edition installed, I started it up and created a new character, and played through the prologue (making sure to do all the side quests and stuff).

While messing around with the party combat simulations (and realizing in the process that "Canderous" must be somebody at Bioware's pet character name that they probably also use in their real tabletop campaigns), Obe the Illusionist seemed to nag me rather frequently and call "Time" after what seemed like a short time. I didn't think too much of it initially, but after noticing another issue I'm wondering if that's supposed to happen.

What's definitely misbehaving is spell duration. I deliberately left returning Firebead Elvenhair's scroll for last, to maximize mileage on the Protection from Evil spell. I went straight from him to Gorion by a pretty short route - yet the spell had already worn off by the time I reached Gorion. I know damn well that's not supposed to happen - the spell is supposed to last long enough to keep you safe from the cheeky hit Tamoko gets on you during the run-in with Sarevok where Gorion dies.

What's going on, and what if anything can I do to fix this? And I mean in the original saga itself if posible, not switching to EE or to playing via Tutu.
I definitely want to fix it before I play any further. Because spells not lasting as long as they should... that's a problem, and probably a sign that other timers will run down faster than they should.

I'm also tempted to look up a savegame editor purely to restore my health to full. A cheap and petty thing to do, I know, but considering I was only damaged because the game misbehaved...

Can you quantify this? Remember that the game naturally runs time at an accelerated rate relative to the real world. Each round is only 6 seconds for the player, but is claimed to be 60 seconds for the characters. Firebead is a very high level mage. Perhaps the Original Saga does not have the proper entry for the duration of a spell cast by such a high level mage. Are spells cast by your party similarly too short? Is it? I don't see in the BCS files that Tamoko gets a hit on you at all. Even if she did, the game is supposed to advance time to midnight after you depart Candlekeep, so unless you timed the visit with Firebead to be very late in the evening, I would expect his spell to have worn off by the time of the ambush. I always thought his spell was to protect you from a prologue assassin (or both of them, if you are lucky / fast). It would be interesting to see if EE exhibits the same problem. Even if you choose not to play EE, knowing whether it is affected might narrow down possible causes. You could also rest until healed.

The thing is that this is how it always has been. I've been playing the original 5 CD version even recently and can confirm that the Protection from Evil spell lasts quite short time and is pretty useless regarding the ambush outside the Candlekeep. Tamoko will always hit you with her Fire Arrow spell and always for 1 damage - this is just scripted event and is supposed to happen no matter what.

Is there any other use from the spell that Firebead is casting on us? Well, it could be a nice buff against one of the assassins, or if you're into exploits you can make a really maxed out fighter you can try to take out one of the Guards and start the game with a plate mail.

Personally, I think that the healing potion that we also get from Firebead is much more useful compared to the Protection from Evil spell that he casts on us. I think it's rather an allusion that we might face something dangerous outside the Candlekeep, rather than an actual gameplay buff.

So what, exactly, is your problem? Almost every NPC in the game was a PnP character of a Bioware employee. Is there some specific issue you're having with Canderous? That's been an issue since the original 5-disc version of the game. Under certain conditions, Obe will start to trigger the "Are you done yet, or do you want to keep going?" dialog VERY rapidly. Fortunately, this is only a simulation so if you really want to see it through to the end you can keep telling him you're not ready to quit yet. He'll keep summoning more waves of enemies, but they cause zero damage so you'll eventually kill all of them and/or Obe will eventually tell you "I think that's enough training for one day" and teleport you back outside. Just be aware there's absolutely no reward for finishing the simulation: the enemies don't give any experience or drop any loot. A lot of veteran players just skip Obe entirely since there's not much point to the encounter if you're already familiar with group combat. Or if you want to role-play (a couple of the training companions do show up later in the story), you can play through a few waves of the training and call it a day just to establish that your character had some history with these NPCs. "Protection from Evil", which is what Firebead casts on you, only lasts a few rounds. When you and Gorion leave Candlekeep, several HOURS pass. His spell is always going to expire before the encounter with the dark figure and his cohorts. If you do manage to reach Gorion and leave Candlekeep while the spell is still active, you'll hear it immediately "fizzle out" when the next cutscene begins and Gorion starts to say "Let's hurry, child. The night can only get worse so we must find shelter soon."

Tamoko always causes exactly ONE point of damage to you -- it's a scripted event. (In the Enhanced Edition, it's actually a random bandit that shoots you with a fire arrow. In the classic version it's Tamoko who casts the Flame Arrow spell.) It's kind of a fun role-playing thing to think that having Firebead's protection spell is why you ONLY took ONE point of damage from a focused assassination attempt from a group of much higher level enemies who by all rights should have blasted you into oblivion in a single round. But in practice, Firebead's spell will have expired long before you reach that point and you're always going to take that one point of damage.

That being said, if you still think spell effects are expiring well before they should, make sure you haven't modified the FPS / gameplay speed setting of the game. If you have, that's going to affect real-time spell durations since you're shortening the time of each psudo-turn-based combat round in the game engine. Normally a "round" is 6 real-time seconds, but if you speed up the game engine and/or increase the FPS then rounds will be much faster.

Regarding Obe's training, you actually get some experience for two waves of enemies: 1) 1 exp per each gibberling in the very first wave and 2) 7 exp per each kobold (probably an oversight). Other than that, it's meant to teach you how the group combat is working with a wide range of different classes.

There's also an exploit that lets you bring these companions with you. Personally, I've been using some of them in my playthroughs and I'm planning to complete the game with all of them some time in the future.