Ach, got the towns mixed up. Yeah, Beregost isn't exactly prime ground for finding companions.

As to my goof with the rules, I haven't played BG in a while, and all the reading of 2e material for the campaign I have coming up has only impaired my recollection of the house rules the BG implements.
Don't forget a weapon that does Bludgeoning damage; not too many creatures that have ways of reducing damage at low levels, but skeletons are plentiful and will all but shrug off any attempt to pierce or slash them, taking full damage only from being smashed to bits by something akin to a flail or a mace.

Hadn't realised that, probably because my fighter was using bludgeoning weapons anyway as he was dual classing to cleric.

Oh, one other thing which you should probably know which confused me for some time: the game (and dnd 2e in general) often refers to 'rounds' and 'turns'. One round is 6 seconds, the space of time taken to do most normal combat actions like doing one attack action*, thereby allowing people playing the pen and paper system to take it in turn deciding what they'll do in some reasonably sane order. One 'turn' in the game is 10 rounds, ie a minute.

Incidentally, don't be too concerned with a weapon's speed factor. It affects who rolls first to attack in any given round (lower is better), but it doesn't do anything else. More damage is likely to be more important to you, unless there's some reason you need to strike first like to interrupt a mage's spellcasting.

*Which will give you a number of actual rolls equal to the number of attacks you have in your character sheet, which will grow as you level as you're a fighter.

I'm encountering CTDs in BG1. The first time it happened was I entered the burning wizard. It has also happened when I was going to load my game. I followed the conservative modders guide to the letter so nothing too exotic is installed.
Is this normal behavior for BG1?

Regarding how I came up with the stats I did. I did a fair number of rolls and then re-assigned a few points here and there. I thought 15 would be high enough for strength. Should I have taken more out of wisdom and intelligence since I'm playing a fighter?

EDIT: I've also been primarily using my character and Imoen as archers until I can level up.

Assuming you don't mind min/maxing (ie reassigning points to give yourself an optimal, but highly unlikely to be rolled naturally, character), you should really be getting strength and constitution to max at the very least, and dexterity too if at all possible. I wouldn't advise reducing intelligence too much below what you have if you plan to play baldur's gate 2, if you can help it: it'll leave you very weak against a certain enemy type. Wisdom, on the other hand, can probably be safely reduced right down to near its minimum (or at its minimum, if you feel really cheap). If you're planning on taking Imoen for the whole of the first game, there's really no reason to put lots into charisma, either, unless your class needs it (which, in vanilla BG1, I don't believe any do?) or you put more than 16 in (at which point the benefits will be marginal anyway). The reason for this is that Imoen has charisma 16 anyway, and you only really need one person to have a high charisma for NPC interactions. If you don't plan to, then maybe there's a good reason to, but frankly I think you'd struggle to get a nonevil party without anyone with a charisma of 14 or higher, making your points spent in it useless outside Candlekeep. At 14, you won't be getting any discount from shops anyway, so you spent a lot of points to get NPC responses up by a small amount. I think that affects 1 interaction before you get Imoen? You won't have had the charisma to get the better result there, anyway. Especially in 2e, charisma is generally considered a go to 'dump stat', one which you can safely reduce in favour of other stats. Just make sure that whoever has the highest charisma does the talking when it's likely that the game will be checking someone's attitude to you (especially quest rewards, and persuading someone of something). I like to make my 'talker' the party leader in towns, so I default to speaking using them.

While it's obviously too late to change it now (without using an editor), my recommendation would have been to reduce your charisma to 7 and maximise your physical stats.

Incidentally, this is a minor point, but you might have had more luck with higher stat rolls had you chosen a half elf. As you're clearly not going to be dual classing, there wouldn't have been any penalty to do so, and they have higher minimum stats below which the game rerolls.

And yes, using ranged weaponry is highly recommended. Let the enemy be shot at while they close the ground with you, rather than letting yourself be shot. Just make sure you keep your (slightly) tanky characters in front of your other ones for when they arrive. Focussing your fire can also be useful, depending on how strong the enemies are. It's better to have 1 full health creature reach you than 2 half health ones, but if everyone shoots at one of the 6 gibberlings then the other 5 will get through; if you focus 2 people on 3 gibberlings, they'll probably be able to kill them all with their first shots.

Paladins require at least a 17 in Charisma, so that gives you at most 1 point from that attribute that can be reassigned.

I'm most likely going to start over and go for better stats. Going to try and implement a fix I found for the Bergost crashes. What would be the absolute lowest I should aim for on an half elf or elf fighter?

Also, what is the difference between half elf and elf in terms on stats?

The lowest of which stats?

Half-elves get infravision but are otherwise identical to humans. Elves get that as well in addition to a -1 to Constitution and a +1 to Dexterity, making them good thieves or archers, and they lack the human and half elf ability to dual class (instead they must multiclass).

I'll go for being an elf then. Since I'll being using a bow early on a lot +1 dexterity will be useful.

I plan to aim for 18 or 19 strength, 16 dexterity, 17 constitution. as low as possible intelligence and wisdom (I plan to move points from here to other stats), and whatever is left for charisma. Would these be good starting stats for a fighter?

I'm still debating if I should go for being a paladin instead of just a standard fighter this time.

I'm going to try and make this the last time I start over.

Humans are the only race who can dual class.
Any other race can only multi class.
All races can use a single class char.

The most significant difference between human and half elf is
if you want to dual class (human) or multi class (half elf can use more multi class
options than other races).

If someone hasn't mentioned it, I would review the manual, taking a special look at the tables in the back. It will help you build out your players better understanding what Stats you want to buff.

My first play through was with a Ranger back when the game first came out, but with Minsc I'd rather use a different class now.

Can't get 19 STR out of the gate (max is 18/00 for an Elf Fighter). I'd also highly recommend going for at least 18 DEX (4 AC bonus and +2 thac0 with ranged weapons) or 19 if you have the points (Still 4 AC bonus, but +3 thac0 with ranged weapons). 16 DEX is only 2 AC bonus and +1 ranged thac0.

*edit* This rule set is all about min/maxing. So don't think about what would be the lowest stats you could get away with, rather think about getting the highest possible scores in your class' main stats (for a FTR this is STR, DEX, and CON).

I certainly plan to aim for higher stats than last time. AC means armor class correct?

Is there a downside to building an elf fighter with very low intelligence and wisdom?

Thanks for your explanations of the stats.

If I make it through BG1 I plan to start new characters for BG2.

Is there a minimum charisma I should shoot for or should I just use Imoen as some have suggested?

You could use Imoen if you don't get a decent CHA score on your character. But after pumping your main stats, dump everything else to CHA. The higher the better, but it's not a game-breaker if it isn't real high.