All right, I'm trying something that I tried about 16 years ago for the first time: To play the original Baldur's Gate without use of any mods. That means I'm playing vanilla GOG version - no tutu, no BGT, no fixpacks, no widescreen mod, with the joys of HP rerolls. When I have played the game 16 years ago for the first time I got quickly bored of it and shelved it in favor of Fallout 1+2. About 5 years ago, I have finished the original BG with BGT, NPC project and some fixpacks. Right now tho, I am interested in playing the game how it was intended again, to see just how it compares - yes, it's prompte by another thread which lives somewhere around here. I'm gonna post my feels over here for future reference and for some sick enjoyment of you assholes, because rerolling HP, yay!

So anyway, after prolonged attempts, I have rolled a true neutral elven cleric with following stats:
S: 16
D: 16
C: 16
I: 8
W: 18
C: 9
She might very well be rubbish, I sort of went with my guts with goal of creating a meele focused cleric and race selection is tots roleplaying. Getting into the game, I took note of several things
a) Very nice UI. I mean, the asthetic is great.
b) The music. Oh god the music.
c) Shockingly detailed tutorial. Not only are there a bunch of tutors explaining most basic mechanics, the game is very careful to hammer in that you need to be careful and gather a party once you get out of Candlekeep.
d) My cleric PWNED EVERYTHING. Aside from the Ogre I found somewhere in a forest. Damn ogre. Boy was I glad I grabbed the entangle spell on character creation. Is it rubbish? Pff, I'm loleplaying bro!
e) Birds flying backwards and weird fog of war - then I figured out you need to toggle display to 16bit .. thing and enable software mirroring. Eh.
f) Combat is focused around standing in front of each other and flailing in the general direction of your opponents. I really believe the game would work better as a proper turn-based game, but well...

I'm not really bothered by the closed-in camera - I mean, your characters can't really see that far anyway, and at least I get a better look at the pretty backdrops and surprisingly good sprite animations. And some backwards flying birds. Eh. And I have already noticed some differences from BGT - resting in wilderness seems to be a lot more risky, and you can't rest until healed any longer. I'm actually a fan of this as it makes resting a lot rarer occurrence.

Anyway, now I'm exploring Friendly Arms Inn and exping up to kick the ogre's ass. 'cause the ogre has made a not yet powerful enemy. I'll post updates as I go along (unless I grow bored of the game)

Edit: I need a way to add notes to my map. This will drive me crazy.

You could try playing around with glitches that were later fixed. For example, try duplicating scrolls (and if you don't want to make the game too easy, just don't save afterword).

I have only played it vanilla, for many many years. So far, I'm mod-free for BG. But I do plan on playing through the series in a few years with the EE and the middle-game put in. By then, they should have BG3 done, too. :)

Good luck with this. The map notes wouldn't bother me too much, though it's a pain in BG city with all the people living in random houses you need to fetch crap for, but the lack of a highlight key would be a nightmare. I use that ALL THE TIME, even just to highlight loot for fallen enemies. Not as big a deal on small resolutions I guess, but pixel hunting isn't my favourite hobby.

No, it most certainly does not. Thank you tho, I'm actually enjoying myself more than I thought I would. I mean, even details like these can be a part of design to an extent. Perhaps some items were supposed to be hidden and obscured, now revealed thanks to new features. We'll see how much of an issue it'll prove later down the line. But you have dem biases! You been playing and enjoying it for long time! You no good!

All right, I've noticed that killing stuff feels a lot more satisfying than I remember. I wonder, is it just my memory being crap, or is the original Baldur's Gate significantly different in this manner? Are sound assets different? I can imagine the feeling of satisfaction not being as strong without the satisfying thumps and thuds. Animation quality is quite good too. I do remember enemies flinching when hit and then twitching on the ground after they die, that's a nice touch. Eh, I guess it might even be the camera being closer to the action.

Every. Single. NPC. Has stuff to say. I have seen some dialogue repeat, but even talking to random strangers can prove to be worth it, even adding entries to my journal. That's actually pretty cool.

I love Baldur's Gate 1 (to the point where I almost like it more than BG2), but man, I don't think I could play it without mods or EE. It's not just the obvious stuff, like resolutions above 640x480 and class kits, it's the little things like not having to reload to get max HP on level-up and highlighting objects with the tab key.
I can understand why you'd do this endeavor, even with something like TuTu and minimal modding there are still engine differences between BG1 and 2, but small conveniences add up for me. I wish you luck in your endeavor.

Is that strange to play this game without the Tutu or the BGT? I usually play only with the unofficial patchs.

anyway, the absence of the highlight key was, indeed, used for obscured items, being the two most infamous the Wizard Ring (x2 Spells slots for level 1! at the beginning of the game!) and the ankheg armor.

All right, exploration is as good as it's ever been. Seriously, this is by far the best aspect of Baldur's Gate - just go wherever, explore, find NPCs, find quests, do whatever you feel like. This right here is why I could never really get into the second game. Not at all, I'm just attention whoring again. I imagine most people who bought the game on GOG just play the vanilla GOG version. See? Now I won't find either which will change my experience :-P Honestly, after hearing all the horror stories on this, I don't think it's a big deal. Well, I don't go for max HP necessarily, just to get something in the upper half of the possible HP pool. Then again, I can imagine this being horrible with slow loading times on contemporary computers. If you have something specific you'd like me to try for your benefit I will gladly do so - otherwise I generally try to avoid using exploits/glitches in my playtroughs. In fact I go as far as to purposefully play around them as to not trigger them if they're really easy to achieve.

You're no fun! (I actually see glitching as the biggest reason for playing an older version of a game over a newer one.)

Anyway, there are 3 interesting glitches I remember seeing in a speedrun:

1. Scroll duplication. Use a scroll, then before the spell is cast, go into the character's inventory and pick up the scroll. The scroll will not disappear because it is currently in the hand. Now, once the spell is cast, put it back. This should allow you to underflow the scroll quantity and end up with 65535 of them. (I don't know whether you have to do this twice or if simply using the scroll normally will work.) This doesn't work in the BG2 engine because the game pauses in the inventory.

2. Cast Dimension Door, then leave the area before it resolves. You will now teleport to the same coordinates in the next area. Not doable in BG2 without cheating to get Dimension Door, but likely possible in Tutu/Trilogy.

3. Polymorph teleporting. (This was used to get into a late game early, allowing one to reach the trigger for one of the later chapters without playing through the intermediate chapters, allowing much of the game to be skipped.) Possible in BG2, but likely easier in BG1 because there's no summoning limit. Just make sure that, when polymorphing into a bigger creature, that the nearest space you fit is where you want to go (which could be on the other side of a wall.)

All right, I'm enjoying the game a lot more than I thought I would. Now that I knew what to expect and do not want a story-based RPG, I'm actually having a lot of fun. I like the NPC interactions both among each other and "with" my reputation. I still love the exploration and that didn't change - actually, with slower walking speed and random monster placement that I do not believe was present in BGT it feels a lot more suspenseful. I played it for about 8 hours now and I'm not planning on quitting it any time soon, in spite of Batman: Arkham Knight, Witcher 3 and Ass Creed 4: Black Flag waiting to be finished on my hard drive, which I have now put on hold in favor of Baldur's Gate. It's a surprise to me, and a very pleasant one at that. By what I perceived as flaws before the game actually stands apart from other games of this style and next time someone asks "So, does it still hold up?" I won't necessarily change contents of my answer, but I'll be a lot more positive.

I want to see how does this version compare to the so-called enhanced ones. I still have not made my full conclusions on the topic, but it definitely feels very different.

Have you tried the Dimension Door spell yet? (Apparently, the spell is not obtainable in the Enhanced Edition, but it is in the original.)

The spell isn't likely to break the game unless you switch areas while it is in effect, unless there is some place you can skip an important event trigger.

Didn't get a chance to try any of these yet. I actually obtained my wizard just now.

I'm so glad to welcome someone still playing the vanilla Baldur's Gate. I tried playing EE, but in the original everything just 'fits'. The engine change disturbs the game too much in my opinion. The slower walking speed, no pause in the inventory, no container highlight etc. are quite important parts of the game for me. I prefer the character animations of BG1, as well as the stone UI.

I like to replay Baldur's Gate from time to time, choosing a different class with no overpowered stats and going for various party compositions. There are so many possibilities and the freedom to explore. I hope you're enjoying your playthrough and wish you good luck with completeing it.