You're right. as soon as i started saying Uncle and running away like a girl things are going better.

One thing to note along with Hickory's suggestions - you should run in to a pair of travelers on the road to the Inn (in the first area after Candlekeep) named Monteran and Xzar. While they are evil aligned, take them with you even if you are a good party. They will help you out in fights. Xzar will have a useful spell, and Monteran has some thief and fighting skill.

Once you get to Friendly Arms, pick up Jaheira and Khalid and you'll have a full party. Maybe not the best party, but it's a start. Then you can begin clearing some of the first areas around Candlekeep and the Inn. You will need to get to Nashkil before too long, but the time limit is pretty lax, so take your time. I find having two melee fighters in heavy armor and four ranged attackers to be pretty useful in most fights - the AI tends to go after the melee fighters, leaving the ranged fighters to cast spells and pelt the enemy with arrows and bullet stones.

I've found that experience with JRPGs doesn't help much with Baldur's Gate as it's a completely different type of RPG. I had a lot of problems during my first run as well. and that was even with familiarity with DnD 2e rules. I settled on a Cleric/Ranger for my current run and it's going a lot better due to knowing more about the game now.

Of course, I have my own stumbling block right now in Chapter Five as I'm in a major fight and die rather quickly. I'm having to re-think my strategy a bit, heh.

Flynn

I know it says solved and you've figured it out, but I just wanted to reiterate that you should spend a lot of time (after you make it to friendly arm and get khalid and jaheira) doing a whole bunch of the wilderness type areas all around the map between friendly arm and nashkel. I like to be level 5 before I even do the mines because the boss there is hard if you're too low.

Also, know that on each map you can go to the 4 sides and each side (most of the time) has a location next to it that you "discover" when you travel at the edge of the map.

Now i had already made those two ticked off and they left so now i know to take them with me, tyty

Drealmer7: thank you as well, i had noticed the indicator but i was unsure if i was going into a more dangerous area if i used them.

At level 1 you will be. Try to stick to the main quest line (head south from FAI) until you reach Nashkel, when you can speak to the Mayor, and then Jaheira will quit bugging you and stay with you.

Usually D&D players find Icewind Dale's combat far more difficult than all of the other Infinity Engine-type RPGs.

Curious...

Because IWD combat is completely hack & slash, and all enemies on a map can automagically 'see' you, and mob you. By comparison it's crap.

It's pretty handy how they do it, you go to the edge of the screen and click to travel and it pops you to the world map to pick your location (which you can pick any of the locations on the map, and it reveals to you the location next to you in the direction you went), but you can just stay where you are by clicking on the map you're currently on and it puts you right back where you were. Great way to reveal all the locations adjacent to your map without leaving the map.

I like to finish all I can on one map, including discovering what's at the 4 edges, then move systematically through them so I know I get it all done.

I find http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgate/walkthrough.php to be a great resource. Spoilers galore and some ads you need to skip, but a great place for a completionist or someone who simply likes to know what they might have missed.

Icewind Dale is tough, but linear.

In Baldur's Gate it is a -lot- easier to run into something way beyond your level. Explore north of the Friendly Arm, meet Ankheg... see the fate of the OP's 3rd character.

And that mage in the Friendly Arm is just terrible. If he gets a Horror spell off, you're very likely doomed.

Icewind Dale doesn't have surprises like that. It just starts you off on goblins and orcs and the like.

thank you everyone. things are going much better and i think i can make a go of it now. got to the third map and only dying when i actually do something stupid myself instead of as a surprise. I would call that progress :)

I know it says you've got your answer, but for the mage at the Friendly Arms inn, I normally go around the outer walls of the inn, counter clock wise (yes, it's a minor chicken excrement cheat) so that when I come between the inn and the church and I trigger the mage to start talking to me, the guards are all around the front of the church and I can run inside while they kill him for me.

There's lots of cheese like this that one picks up on over time: casting AOEs outside of a hostile enemy's visible range, exploiting enemy pathfinding, using summons to exhaust an enemy mage's spellbook and so on.

Anyhow, there's definitely an initial learning curve to the game, but once you know which enemies are where and tactics for particular fights it's possible to metagame it to the point that solo and no-reload challenges are within the reach of many players. To me, that's one of the delightful things about new players coming to the BGs. The games *are* hard when you don't have a good idea of your surroundings and how strong the enemies are, but there is a definite sense of becoming more proficient at them over the course of the first few playthroughs.

Your tactic is not "...a minor chicken excrement cheat" but an actual strategy used in previous classics like Robotron 2084 where the player is deliberately placed in the center of an open arena surrounded by enemies everywhere and must struggle to fight through all four corners of the screen to stay in the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVA2Axxfdk

Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn builds on this concept considerably but slows down the action with a 'pause & play' gameplay mechanic; not exactly turn-based like Chaos- Battle of Wizards seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6mlXoN2XAM

...but a common strategy seen in those two classic games.