Brand new to Baldur's Gate (well... I played years ago but never made it very far.) Here I am kicking butt and taking names. Playing the original game with ToSC. I'm all pumped up, just your neighborhood friendly Barbarian trekking along with Imoen, Minsc, Jaheira, Kalid(?) and Dynahair. Feelin all sorts of badass, when I read that Durlag's Tower should probably be done after a certain point in the storyline, before you fight the final boss.

So we wander into said tower (hope that's not spoilery.) and kick more butt and take more names... until.... Warden Puzzle. I decide, 'meh' and promptly look up a guide...

..to find more puzzles. Not only that, but numerous questions across the internet regarding BG2 puzzles.

I HATE puzzles. Nothing irritates me more than having to do something specifically as the developer intended. You take away my freedom, and I'm no longer interested in playing. With limited play time due to work, my patience evaporates fairly quickly. As someone who couldn't even begin to figure out the Warden puzzle... how many more puzzles are there throughout the Baldur's Gate series? I was looking for something like Dragon Age Origins with the lovely DnD 2 system, but its starting to look like BG2 is pretty puzzle heavy.

I'd rather spend my time getting to know my companions, kill monsters, and get loot. I didn't sign up for puzzles. If I wanted those, I'd get a puzzle game.

I'm seriously considering uninstalling BG1 and 2 and just playing something else. Be interested to hear everyone's opinions!

I don't think there are all that many puzzles in bg2 but if you want to play something else then I'd recommend Pillars of Eternity as a game with the same base rules.

p.s, unlike bg pillars is all about maxium stats at the start because there isn't the books that bg1 has so don't make an average character unless to want to put up with a guy thats bad at everything.

If you like the combat in BG, maybe Icewind Dale would be more to your liking? The only puzzles I can think of in IWD are one place you have to step on stone plates in the correct order. The correct combination is in the previous room so you can't get stuck there. There's also a riddle and a "put the item in the right container" puzzle in the Trails of the Luremaster area, but there isn't much to those either and that's pretty much it. IWD2 has more puzzles though and yes, they can be tedious.

Essentially, Icewind Dale is a linear "beat the shit out of monsters and collect loot on the way" version of BG without BG's cringeworthy dialog. There's no character development as in back story or personal troubles but you do create your entire party. I prefer IWD over BG and you might be the same.

Many puzzles can be bypassed by exploiting the engine ways that the developers didn't intend. For example, it may be possible to polymorph teleport past a puzzle. (To polymorph teleport, get into a small space (companions and summons can be helpful here), then polymorph into a creature that doesn't fit in the space; if the nearest place you *do* fit is on the other side of a wall/door, you will end up on the other side of it.)

On the other hand, this doesn't sound like the sort of gameplay you are looking for. This sort of thing is actually one of the problems I have with D&D based CRPGs; your stats, which are randomly determined at the start, do not improve much throughout the game, so a bad decision punishes your character forever. I much prefer the approaches taken in games like Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Ultima, and Might and Magic where your stats grow throughout the game, so a bad starting stat only hurts you early in the game.

(Alternatively, having your stats be permanent isn't so bad in games where you choose characters rather than creating them, or if your stats are determined from something that can be easily changed (like Final Fantasy 5).)

I'm not a fan of puzzles in cRPGs, I prefer to play puzzle games when I want puzzles. BG doesn't have many puzzles, I think the one with the wardens in Durlag's Tower is the longest one in the game and isn't very annoying. You just need to explore the level, you'll find the necessary items and the clues are pretty obvious.

I find the second level of Durlag's Tower to be the most annoying, but it all has it's purpose if you're following the history of the place.

Durlag's Tower is the only place with a couple of "puzzles". But most of them are trivial. Level -2 is by far the toughest in that respect. But really, all you have to do, is to explore the area, talk to the four guardians to understand what they want and then find the items they want.

And as someone mentioned you are playing BG1 not BG2.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I already have Pillars of Eternity, but it didn't grab me the way BG1 did. You know, once I put my mind to it, and actually got some sleep, the Warden puzzle is fairly easy. I need to be more patient.

...speaking of my lack of patience, I was so excited for BG2, that I left the tower right afterwards. I kept a save in case I want to play it at some point, but now that I have beaten BG1, I absolutely cannot wait to play BG2. Thanks for listening to my rant guys. Off to figure out how charactor importing works.

Vanilla BG1 doesn't really have many puzzles...only thing I can think of is the riddle that mad guard captain (Brage?) gives you (probably a few others as well). Durlaq's tower has quite a few, but imo they don't require much thought, is more trial and error...I found them annoying (but then I don't like that tower much anyway).
BG2 on the other hand has quite a few puzzles. I think it's a better game for it...BG1 is fun, but gameplay really is a bit limited and quite combat-centric. An occasional puzzle, if well done and not too frustrating, is a nice diversion and enhances gameplay in my opinion...I actually think the BG games should have had more of them.