1.) Ranged weapons. First off, reading the manual is important, but it won't tell you everything, especially when it comes to why ranged weapons are awesome. Part of this is based on the understanding is that you with a ranged weapon means you don't have to get up close and personal to hurt things, meaning the only thing that can even begin to harm you are other ranged weapons. A lot of monsters will only have melee attacks, and while they are lumbering in your direction, having the group chuck pointy sticks and stones at it will weaken it up for the melee focused fighters at worst and kill the thing before it gets in range of you at best. Given that a bear is capable of killing one of your characters in one successful hit early on, this is important; start hitting that bear from afar, preferably while your most heavily armored fighter runs around kiting the bear, and all of a sudden lethal overworld encounters start giving you more than halfway decent odds at survival.
2.) Interparty conflict. BG has a number of other characters you can recruit to join your party, but this can result in conflict (i.e. them turning on you and trying to kill you) for one of a few different reasons. Firstly, as a condition of joining you, some characters will have a specific quest that needs to get done, and if you don't do that quest in a certain amount of time, they grown enraged and turn on you. Now, granted, the timer that these quests run on is fairly generous, but once, say, you pick up a ranger who tells you that you must rescue his wizard companion, you should probably do that ASAP lest they decide to throw a hissy fit because they can't wrap their head around the concept of doing so after you have leveled up by clearing out an infested mine.
Secondly, party members with conflicting values may eventually turn o the group. It sounds like a big deal, but really all it boils down to is whether your companions are Good, Evil, or Neutral. See, D&D has what is called alignment, which indicates a character's morality; this is measured on two axes, Law and Chaos, and Good and Evil. The latter is the only one relevant here. If you have a very high reputation due to doing "Good" things, the Evil party members will start whining and moaning, while if you have a low reputation due to doing "Evil" things, the Good party members will start chastising you. Eventually, this can result in the aggrieved turning on you. Neutral members don't react one meaningful way or the other. Keeping your reputation in the middle prevents any of this from happening. Personally, I have problems with it because it insinuates that no "Evil" character has any understanding of the idea that the most effective "Evil" character acts like the nicest person ever to get people to trust them, but that's how it functions in the game.
Also, some characters will only join you if someone else does, and they will leave if you dismiss that person; it's not unlike being a kid and unable to invite Rick to your birthday party without inviting Darla because those two are joined at the hip. This won't result in anyone trying to kill you, but it is worth noting, especially since, in my experience, the second party is almost always the less useful of the two, which means wasted party space. This can be averted either through bug exploits or letting the lesser party die in a way that prevents them from being resurrected (i.e. gibbed); I'm not too crazy about either, but figured you might want to know.
3.) Composition. Avoid people who are Good or Evil, depending on what your reputation is looking like. Ideally, you'll want a couple of front line fighters (Paladins, Rangers, Fighters), a divine caster (Druid/Cleric/both), an arcane caster (general/specialist wizard), and someone of a, er, shadowy persuasion (Thief, possibly multiclassed with a Fighter, for disarming traps and lockpicking). Other than that, go wild.
I think I get what you are saying about the initial struggle. I had to fiddle around a bit before I really understood how to play Fallout, but after that it was all sunshine and rainbows (well, rather mushroom clouds and colorful fallout). On the other hand, I was playing BG until I was getting near the end and I still couldn't bring myself to like it outside of a sort of self-formed Stockholm Syndrome that made me think that the game was getting slightly better (it was't). I don't mean to say that the same will happen to you; if you enjoy it, groovy, but if you are a significant length into the game and you are no longer at that initial struggling point but are still having trouble getting into it, that would be an indication to stop.
Post edited December 29, 2013 by Jonesy89
