1 or 2?

I'm assuming you're talking about the early stages of BG1, which are indeed aggravatingly tough due to D&D's levelling system. Once you get to level 3, the game becomes substantially more balanced, because wolves can't kill you in a single hit anymore. (You still have to watch out for archers, though, especially Kobold Commandos.) My best advice is to save often, rest often, and use ranged weapons to whittle foes down as much as possible before you melee them. It's also very important to have a character with a good AC in the early levels to take the hits.

It's a good introduction to D&D, though BG1 takes a much simpler approach to the rules than BG2 does. (BG2 is still pretty simplified, though.) Just make sure to read the manual cover to cover first, because there are a lot of quirks to the system that may not necessarily be obvious if you've never had any experience with it before.

Yes, the early part of Baldur's Gate is quite badly balanced; if it were a real D&D session, I'd be shooting the DM nasty looks as my character was devoured by wolves for the tenth time, and ask him to please knock it off. It does get better, although there were scattered fights that I still thought were pretty unreasonable.

I don't think not knowing much about D&D should be a big roadblock; I beat the whole game without ever figuring out what THACO actually does, beyond "Low good, high bad." Maybe don't pick something exotic like a bard for your first playthrough; a fighter is pretty much a fighter, whether it's Baldur's Gate or Might and Magic.

I assume that you are playing BG1, which is indeed tough for beginners. A few tips for you:

1. In early stages, which means when you are under level 3, your team is WEAK, and it's favorable NOT to attack any monsters unless unavoidable. Follow the road and avoid any fight. I'd also suggest follow the main quest and avoid areas that are full of powerful monsters.

2. There are a few avoidable fights early in the game. Recruit as many as you can and the difficulty will drop dramatically. Know that the protection spells of mages only last for a certain period of time. So if you encounter a powerful mage protected by Mirror Image or other spells and find the battle to be hard, you can simply withdraw and wait for a few hours and the protection spells would wear off.

3. You are lack of money and everything seems to be expensive. But remember that you can break into homes and steal! Well, at least do not let you be seen, otherwise you have to face the guards. There are plenty of homes to steal from in major towns. Besides of that, you receive healthy sum of gold for sealing off quests, so talk to everyone and check your journal (J) frequently. There are a few easy quests in the beginning but you have to find them first.

4. All in all. Keep a large team (4-6) until most of the members are level 2, then you can drop a couple of teammates that you despise. And I also recommend you play as a fighter (or similar) because you have plenty of HP as a fighter and spellcasters are not useful until level 3 and beyond. However they become powerful when they reach level 5 and after that they are probably very useful. But generally speaking you can always solve your problems with swords and axes. BTW always keep a good thief around, you need them to disable traps and unlock chests.

Imoen has the Hide in Shadow and Move Silently skills for a reason.
Use her to scout ahead and you avoid being surprised by wolves attacking you.
Being able to chose your own battles significantly increases your odds of ever seing level 2.

The main thing for making fights early on easier is to equip all your characters with ranged weapons. If you take down foes before they can reach you, they can't hurt you either (except ranged attacks obviously, and mages). Learn the run around trick ;) Get them to aggro on your tank, or whoever really, and then have him run ahead of them, while the people with ranged weapons kill them from afar. Keep running until they drop. This works very well for Ogres and such too, who you REALLY shouldn't go toe-to-toe with so early on.

Playing with a fighter the first time will make everything easier because you are much harder to kill. Like in most such games the real power is in mages, though, so for later playthrough you will probably want to try that - simply because it's a lot more fun.

You probably know this already, but LOW THAC0 = GOOD

It's better to have one character with really low Thac0 than all with reasonable Thac0, so try to get your best equipment on one character, and make that your tank. This can be yourself if you're a fighter.

sorry folks i was vague!
i meant 2
i found it really hard. like i needed to know arcane info just to beat some enemies.
and as for THACO. i dunno. had it explained to me twice and still seemed to complicated.
i have been playing RPGs for a long time and usually have no problems.
maybe i picked bad quests from the first city i dont know.
i was left with the impression that its a game for D&D enthusiasts and is not aimed at normal gamers. prove me wrong and i might go back in (after all...I KNOW THE INSTAKILL CHEAT NOW MUHUAHUAHAHA)

Also: spacebar is your friend! Without pausing during battles, the game is almost impossible. You really need to pause the game at times, so you can make tactical decisions.

If you started with BG2, it's indeed a bit much to take in when you've never played an infinity engine game before. I found BG2 to be much easier than BG1 though. But BG1 still teaches you the basics that you take with you to BG2.

I'm playing BG2 right now for the first time, and "easy" isn't exactly a word I would use to describe it ;)

Space bar is very important though. Set it to auto-pause, at least for traps found and enemies sighted. Have started using it for spells cast too, and of course NPCs injured (30% health left). This isn't a hack and slash, so you need to think about what to do, and for that you need liberal use of the spacebar.

Probably best to play BG1 first if you haven't tried it, because then you'll understand the basics better and learn what low-level spells are good.

The very basics, however, is that you want low Thac0 and low AC. You don't need to know about the details about hit dice and all that jazz, I don't understand all the small details either. As long as you try to get low AC and low Thac0, you're good. And both will lower with better equipment and with more level upgrades.

If you're starting right on BG2, mages and priests is where the action is, and their spell libraries is quite a mouthful. So I actually recommend playing BG1 first, through easyTutu so the game looks and performs much better. That way you both learn the gameplay better, and get the story from the beginning.

For BG1 especially, keep in mind that Ranged Weapons is King.

I started with BG2 back when it came out, when was about 12-13, and my first language not being English and knowing fuck-all about DnD, I had to drop the difficulty down to be able to get by, and same happened with BG1, only it was even harder because of the low character levels at the beginning.

So I suppose the games would be fairly hard for anyone, regardless of age, who is not familiar with DnD mechanics, or more used to "modern" action rpg playstyle. Once you you get the hang of it though, the games are not that hard even on the higher difficulties. (Especially if you abuse enemy AI.)

A tip for party building in BG2: have either Keldron and/or Korgan and/or Edwin in your group for the first playthrough, as you will encounter many powerful magic users, and all three of these characters can be a great help against them. It is also handy to have Viconia as a healer, or Anomen, (who can also tank as well) if you`re playing with a good aligned party, and your character is not a healer himself. For a first timer, it is a bit risky to depend on Jaheira or Aerie as the only nurse. I suppose Cernd would do as a healer as well, but since he is a druid he lacks some of the more important defensive spell clerics have. But no matter whom you take with you, having one single class mage and cleric is a must for a first playthrough.

In BG2 the spellcasters are much more dreadful than their counterparts in BG1. You probably noticed that most of them cast protection spells on themselves as soon as they saw the player. Some of the common protection spells are: Stoneskin, Mislead, Mirror Image, Protection from normal weapons/missiles, etc. and many advanced spellcasters use Spell Shield, Contigency as well as Spell Deflection, etc.

Now, if you ever want to touch him, you have to disable some of the defenses. You can look at the description pages in the manual for a basic idea about what each spell does, but here are some ideas: First you need to deplete his Spell Absortion (some spells absorb certain levels of magic or certain numbers of magic); Next you need to use "Oracle" to disable all illusions; And you also need to cast Dispel Magic, Breach to further bring down his magical defenses. Now that you have access for better spells later, but Breach probably is going to stay with you for a long time (Breach is lvl6 which means you have to be lvl11 to cast it). If you have Keldorn, his Dispel Magic is much more powerful than yours, as he is an Inquisitor and if my memory does not fail me his level is doubled on calculation of Dispel Magic, better is that he casts faster than you.

After you bring down his defenses, you must be aware of his magical attacks. Protect your team from Mind-Influence spells, which are the most annoying. Some equipment can help, as well as some potions, and some spells of course. He will also try to bring down your magical defense, but as long as your fighters and archers can "muscle " him, there should be no trouble after a few rounds. And of course, cast Haste/Resist Fear/Bless/Mirror Image/etc. on your team and drink some potions before the fight.

trust me, my fingers bled with joy.

somone mention that you require low THACO and low AC.
this is an example to me of how it is confusing as hell.

For a start THACO sounds like it should kick ass and be cranked to 11
and as for AC.. oh nevermind,,

anyway, to be fair i respect this is a serious RPG and has a huge fanbase so i completely respect that. i had to literally glitch-f**k my way through the major encounters. at one point luring some enemy on a wild goose chase until i could entangle him on lava.then repeating many times until i destroyed his equally confusing enemies.
i really dont get on with this game at all. or dungeons and dragons. not sure which.

For those curious about THAC0:

It means: To Hit Armor Class 0.

You will notice that better AC is lower in BG1+2.

An attack goes as follows:
Roll d20 + Defender's AC +/- Misc. Modifiers = Total outcome. If the total is greater than or equal to your THAC0 you hit!
This game isn't really a fair representative of D&D. Your proposed strategy only really works because this game does a mostly real time implementation of an inherently turn based system.

I have found the trick for difficult encounters is pulling out potions, protection spells, and wands to tip the odds in your favor. That said? This game is very unforgiving and sometimes can feel like dumb luck as to whether you win or lose.

Ie. If the mage at the Friendly Arms Inn gets his Magic Missile spell off, that's very possibly a one-shot kill to even the beefiest of your level 1 party members.

I actually find 1 easier than 2, in 2 nearly every fight is a clusterfuck of annoying spells, its fun but its aggravating to people who suck at it like me