I tried BG a lot of times, never fell in love. But im giving a new chance.

I have a problem with this game. Combat. Usually in videogames, I try my best to win a fight, and usually it worth. But with BG, i'm having this feeling, that fights are a matter of luck.

RIght now i'm at Beregost. I'm fighting the spiders inside a house. I have characters with 4 and 9 HP, so they die almost instantly. Even me, with 13 HP i die so easy because the poison. So, i reload, and try again. Maybe someone dies again. Reload, and this time i win without losses. I feel it's try and try until you are lucky. Usually in a RPG, if i die, its because i'm doing something wrong, but with BG i dont know if it's me or it's just the way the game is, a little bit lucky at combats. So at the end of the day, for me it's like, try and see if this time it works.

So, any advice? Because I really want to play this game, but i'm not comfortable with combats.

I had a lot of problems at low level in the spider house, too. It sucks because of the close quarters and their stupid poison. Also, low level characters are just plain weak for a while in this game. Anyway, let's look at some basics.

1. Get the max of 6 party members if you don't already
2. Get ranged weapons for all
3. Have your casters fire off a disabling spell or two, if possible (Sleep, Horror)
4. You could even have your priest buff the party outside with Bless and Chant (if you've got them memorized)
5. Perhaps you could even try firing all your projectiles at one spider, and then run outside for a moment, returning a few seconds later (I'm not sure if the spiders would return to their original positions, though)

If you're too low level to beat the spiders, just run some more errands to gain EXP and levels and come back a bit later. You can kill the Ogrillons just south of Beregost for some experience and a Ring of Protection +1 when you return the note to the lady just east of the blacksmith's shop, for example.

You can win a fight eventually by save-scumming, but that's not really the way Baldur's Gate was meant to be played. DnD games do have a lot of randomized elements (dice throws), but they also give you lots of ways to alter the odds in your favor, and that's basically the strategy you have to use to win. Take advantage of items such as potions, and more importantly the spells you have available to cast. Note that a relatively small number of spells are intended just to do damage; most of them either buff your party (raise stats, improve chance to hit, etc.), or debuff or disable the enemy (sleep, fear, confusion, stat lowering). Many of the best spells in the game do damage and debuff at the same time.

Also, as with any non-linear RPG, you always have the option to come back later with better equipment and a higher level and try again. Practically no player is ready to beat the spider house upon first visiting Beregost; characters at the lowest levels don't have many abilities, and in particular you're probably lacking a good way to counter poison.

Good tips all from DCC74. I'll add:

7] get the front-liners a potion of antidote or two and quick-slot it.
8] Outside the house, select -only- your tough frontliner characters and have them enter. Once they engage, a few seconds later, pause and select the guys outside. The view will switch back to the other area. Select the squishy party members and have them go in too to provide fire support. Benefits should be obvious: no spiders targeting the weaklings. (This doesn't work in all areas, courtesy the dreaded "you must gather your party before venturing forth" message, but it should work here.)

But if all else fails, running away and coming back another day is always an option. Baldur's Gate has a -lot- of areas where you might want to come back at a later time because you're not tough enough. But when you know the game, luck plays a comparatively small role.

To illustrate: I've known people who played this game iron-man style. One save, protagonist dies, game ends. And they made it through. Wouldn't be possible if it all really came down to luck. (Although I should add that this is only possible if you know the game inside out and can avoid the nasty game-ending surprises it can throw at you. On any first play-through, expect to die a lot even if you're very good.)

The spider's house it's just an example. it's something general with this game, like doesn'tt matter too much what I do because provably someone in my party it's goind to die.

Die is something that feels a little strange to me. For me in an RPG if someone dies at combat it's because i did something wrong. In this game it happens a lot as far as I can see. It's like "Try until you do it without deaths"

Admittedly, the game is the least well balanced for characters at the very lowest levels. When you've got a couple of characters fighting a wolf in the first wilderness area, everyone involved (including the wolf) is going to miss most strikes, and it comes down to who lands the largest number of hits over time. Then again, even at level 1 you might have someone who can cast a sleep spell, if you have any mages. Otherwise, people's advice will generally be to avoid the wolves for now.

The higher the level, the more complex and flawlessly balanced the DnD system gets. That's why most people like BG2 better than BG1. However, even within BG1, you start getting useful abilities and spells pretty early. I'd say that around level 3 or 4, you reach a point where every loss is due to a clear mistake or to being hit with something concrete that you know you don't have a way to overcome yet.

Yes, in most RPGs you can expect to overcome most available fights at the lowest levels with the poorest equipment. One could argue that that doesn't make a lot of sense. Baldur's Gate is toughest when you're starting out, which I think makes it more realistic. The realistic approach to this problem would be to exercise a lot of caution until you've leveled up a couple of times -- tackle foes like bandits, xvarts, and gibberlings, but run from spiders and ogres, and get more of your experience through nonviolent quests. Then go back and do some harder fighting.

As a rule of thumb, in Baldur's Gate:

Do -not- stand toe to toe with the foe, exchanging blows. Not unless you're fighting a Xvart. Even a Gibberling will hurt you, even when targeting your tough, armoured fighters. And then you have to use precious spells or potions to heal them, which you will need more later.

Advance cautiously. Shoot everything that moves. Against tough foes, hit them so often with missile they're forced into stagger-mode and advance at a snail's pace. Against swarms, divide your fire so you don't waste shots on overkill.

When the enemy gets in melee range, run. Scatter like a swarm of bees, shoot with anyone who isn't attacked, retreat with anyone who is. This works best against single, tough foes like ogres.

When the enemy is too many, or has archers: use magic. Area effect spells are your friend. Disabling spells are your best friend. This is low level gameplay. Everybody has terrible saving throws. Hate how your whole party runs from an enemy horror spell? It works on the enemy too. Sleep is the best spell for the first three chapters. Entangle and especially Web are great, but can hinder your own guys, so take care. Horror, hold person, silence against mages. At first, you can get by without magic, but the longer the game goes on the more you'll need it.

Speaking of, hoard items like potions, certain spell scrolls, wands. Rob every house you find to get more, if you have to. Buffing potions in particular are amazingly strong. You'd be surprised at how much difference an oil of speed or potion of giant strength can make.

Finally, if someone other than your main character dies in a tough fight, it's not game over. Temples can resurrect low-level characters at tolerable prices. And even if someone dies permanently... there are always more people to recruit. This game is swarming with recruitable NPCs, I think mostly because the designers assumed you'd lose people along the way.

Ok. I realized I don't have a lot of experience in RPGs like BG, I played tons of RPG, but this BG style, only SW KOTOR and DA:O. Both from Bioware, and those games are similar in how things seems to work, but this ones are a lot more friendly.

I also played a little bit of Planescape and Arcanum, but not enough it seems. So, i'm going to follow your advices (in DAO i usually give everybody a bow, since there are a lot exclusive melee enemies, and it helps until they reach my party), and i'm gonna search some Youtube Walkthroughs, only to see how this game has to be played, because I cannot play this game like KOTOR.

One other thought: is the is the game/combat mechanics you're not comfortable with? Like leaving the AI on and hoping it goes well? Or do you click each party member and give them specific targets, aka micromanaging?

When I first started playing this, I had a hard time with battles just because I was clumsy with my interface or mechanics abilities. I thought the AI was the best way, so I sat back and died a lot. lol

PS: you can pickpocket a bunch of antidotes off the lady at the FAI who gives you the spider house quest. If your reputation and/or charisma is high enough she'll give them to you to aid the mission. But early on you're probably lacking in those areas as well.

What also really helps is turning on all the auto-pause options. It slows combat down, but also lets you have much more control over what's going on. Auto-pause on spell cast, auto-pause on target gone, on character injured, etc.

In BG2 this helps even more because it introduces the auto-pause on enemy sighted option. I imagine the enhanced edition does too.

Excellent points. My life was made a TON easier when I finally figured the auto-pause thing out.

I think everyone else has provided excellent tips and I hope that they help you! I just wanted to add that low level 2nd ed D&D is brutal. You have almost no hit points and very few spells. It gets better once you have a few levels under your belt and you gain some survivability.

If you are looking for more help, I recommend Dan Simpson's walkthrough, too. Its a pretty comprehensive view of everything in the game, but you can also use it to just look for special items in a particular wilderness zone or figure out quests (since BG1 isn't too kind about telling you what you need to do for a quest).

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/75251-baldurs-gate/faqs/2456

I will take a look at that FAQ, thank you!

I think the game it's just hard at the start, that's it, almost no hit points, only 2 or 3 spells... I know how to play, but it's hard, even if i pause, and I decide what is going to do everybody, thinking carefully. But even if I do that, the danger of death is really high.

So, I will keep in my mind that it's just a hard start for a great experience.

In addition to all the good tips given above, remember that you can adjust the difficulty level - if the combats are too hard for you, just lower the difficulty settings for that combat. You can change it at any time, you don't have to play the whole game in the difficulty, you can adjust it higher and lower as needed.

Fair warning; lowering the difficulty lowers the amount of XP that you get, meaning you will be at a lower level than usual, meaning prolonged playing on easier difficulties can make it difficult to transition to higher ones.