To me it was never really an issue. The way I always played those games was that, if I was exploring a new dungeon area where I suspected there might be traps, I would have my rogue some way ahead of the party, inching forward a few steps at a time and disarming any traps they find. If you are only moving that one character a short distance at a time, the pathfinding doesn't really come into it.

I can understand though, that if the way you were playing it was to try to spot the traps and then bypass them with your whole party without disarming, then I can see the pathfinding there might be an issue. I don't recall if the pathfinding was smart enough to automatically avoid traps that you are aware of. But then, I don't think the game was designed to be played like that. For example, in many dungeons in BG2 it wouldn't be possible, as there tend to be traps that span the whole width of the corridor and block you. I'm not sure it is even possible to get out of Irenicus' dungeon by bypassing traps without disarming.

Regarding your other comment there: if you get into a situation where you're in an area where there are active traps and some characters in your party get confused or run away, I'd say that's just bad luck tbh. In a dangerous dungeon full of traps, bad things are going to happen if you get confused and stumble around aimlessly. To me, that's realism rather than bad design.

In my experience, it was always fairly obvious what killed me, so again not something that ever bothered me.

Btw, I am not trying to suggest BG2 is a perfect RPG. It's not (and no such game exists). There are many criticisms that can be made. But for me it's plusses greatly outweigh it's shortcomings and it is still overall the best CRPG I have played. Imo, it's really the campaign design, the roleplaying, the meaningful choices for the player, the attention to detail that make the game, as opposed to the engine or the D&D system.

The magic still has to be memorized.

What's significant, however, is that clerics don't need to find spells in order to learn them. In IWD (and IWD2), scrolls are somewhat scarce, so you might not have any good spells (or, in some cases, any spells at all) of the new spell level you just acquired. So, your level 5 mage might not have either Fireball or Haste. Clerics, meanwhile, don't have this issue, and can memorize any spell available to their class of their new spell level as soon as that spell level is acquired, which is a *huge* advantage. In BG/BG2, on the other hand, scrolls are plentiful, so clerics don't have nearly as much of an advantage.

Dungeon Hack has a similar factor going on, with the added factor of the dungeon RNG. Furthermore, Dungeon Hack implements the need to eat, but it has the Create Food spell, which is, of course, a cleric spell. There's also other spells that mitigate many of the more troublesome RNG aspects of the game, and as a result, clerics have a big advantage here.

(By the way, why don't mages get to pick spells at level up in these games? In the Gold Box games, the Dark Sun games, and Temple of Elemental Evil, they do, and I'm pretty sure the rules say they do, so why don't the IE games and Dungeon Hack let you? I could also point out that Sorcerers, who are balanced by a more limited spell selection, get to choose their spells at level up; this is especially notable in IWD2 and IWD:EE.)

I was actually going to ask that question, don’t mages get to choose a spell each level. Been a while since I played any of them, beamdog killed my interest in them.
In terms of spells you only really need chromatic orb, magic missile, that should be be it until higher levels when wish becomes a necessity, and time stop and prison are useful. Not big on buffs as I am not a team player. A lot of what i needed in BG1 as a mage was from wands anyways, summons, lightning strikes.
Ah, maybe I was a sorcerer and not a mage first time through (this was 20 years ago!). I don’t think the full rules are implemented in IE games.

Some rules, like racial level limits and the permanent Constitution loss on revival, are not implemented for good reason, as they would be frustrating for the player if they were implemented, or would reduce the set of viable options. (Imagine Throne of Bhaal with racial level limits.) (On the other hand, the handling of dying and death is harsher; in tabletop, 0 is unconscious and -10 is dead (can be revived), but in the IE games 0 is dead (can be revived) but -10 is perma-dead (can't be revived).)

The Sorcerer is a class that wasn't introduced until 3rd Edition; as a result, BG2's Sorcerer isn't balanced against the other classes in that game, as it's borrowed from a different edition. (IWD2, on the other hand, has 3e versions of all classes, except that Wizards still don't get spells at level up, even though the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook clearly says they get 2 spells at level up.)

Also, Chromatic Orb and Magic Missile are the same level and therefore use the same resource; without higher level spells you'll run out of spells rather quickly.

I had no idea wizards were supposed to get spells at level up (I always thought that was exclusive to sorcerers). And were sorcerers available in the old Gold Box games or were they added on the 3rd edition of D&D? It's like my whole life was a lie haha

As for the first entries, I did not finish BG but did ID.

I just found BG too boring. Stopped playing right outside the namesake city. You spend most of the time killing the same monsters over and over in large, open but also pretty empty maps. The fact that you also level up very few times throughout the entire game further served to detract from my drive to continue playing. ID had much greater variety that kept me going, you level up much more often and overall, it was just more fun to me.

Sorcerers were added in 3e D&D, which clearly specifies that Wizards get two spells at level up.

BG2 is based on 2e rules, but it includes a few classes from 3e, Sorcerer being one of them. As a result, the class doesn't cleanly fit into the rest of the system, particularly when it comes to game balance. (In 3e, Sorcerers get spell levels more slowly than Wizards, but in BG2 this is only true at lower levels because of how the Mage spell progression differs. (I also note that Mage was renamed Wizard in 3e; then again, before it was called Mage it was called Magic-user, I believe.)

Edit: As far as D&D CRPGs, go:
* The Gold Box games give Mages a spell at level up, IIRC.
* The Dark Sun games also give Mages (Preservers) a spell at level up (and I believe the majority of spells can only be learned this way, or something like that).
* Dungeon Hack does *not* give Mages or Bards spells at level up. (That's one of the reasons Clerics dominate here.) The Eye of the Beholder series is the same way.
* I don't know about the Ravenloft games.
* The Infinity Engine games do not give spells at level up (except for Sorcerers and IWD2 Bards).
* I believe Neverwinter Nights gives spells at level up, and I know Temple of Elemental Evil does.
* I don't know about more recent games; in particular, I don't know how Baldur's Gate 3 handles this.

Neverwinter Nights doesn't give spells to Wizards at all. Only Clerics, Bards, Rangers, Druids, Sorcerers, Paladins, EVERYONE... but Wizards haha. It does compensate with scrolls pretty much everywhere, but still. It supposedly was THE implementation of D&D in digital form, so the fact that they were supposed to learn spells at level up but didn't is hugely dissapointing :( I always played Sorcerer or Ranger on that game though... Only "played around" with other classes.

Ok, but was that specified in the 2e rules (I'm not sure), or was it also something that was introduced in 3e? If the latter, then the way BG implements it would be consistent with the 2e rules for wizards.

Not true, in NWN wizards get to pick spells on level-up just like sorcerers and bards. The difference to sorcerer is that sorcerers get to pick fewer spells, but can cast them more often and switch which spells they can cast on each level-up, "forgetting" those they don't want anymore, while the wizards' choices are final but their repertoire can be expanded with scrolls. Clerics and druids don't get to pick spells at all because they automatically have access to all spells of their level. Not sure about rangers and paladins, I've seldom played them at levels that give them spells.