yeah. played for around 5 hours with widescreen mod but it was too painful on my eyes (everything was too small) so restarted with tutu.
it changes quite few things. it imports BG2 system so few things are tweaked. hard to tell what exact but...
I played as a wizard slayer. not that a good of a class to be honest. cannot use magic item except armour and weapons.
you get bunch of a new classes, ability to dual wield. some new stuff, spells are tweaked. some new spells, like 9th level maze (just a scroll) and 7th level demon (also a scroll cause with exp. limit you barely hit level five of spells aka level 8/9 of your wizard) and of course graphics. 800x600 resolution.
moving speed was also improved. thank god. i would still be like 80% done with the game if it wasn't improved.

Ok i've played about 1 and a half hours and:
Xzar or whatever (the necromancer) is dead, and i'm thinking of keeping him that way. He's bad in combat, but say I wanted to raise him, how can I do that?
This game is brutally tough. I've died at least 4 times, and the spider mission I got from a dwarf in the Friendly Arm Inn is way too difficult...

i found the game to be quite brutal for first 2-3 levels. afterward any tough fights could have been overcome with adjusting the strategy. so hang in there.
xzar isn't that a good npc. better ones are out there. you can raise him via temples (i think. i had never allowed anyone to die on me :D ) but i recommend keeping the party either good or evil (so xzar is evil so keep him only if you create evil party)
neutral characters are good for any party but will complain when you are too good or too evil.

I'm currently a chaotic neitral halfling thief
I have the two dudes picked up fromt he tavern, Xzar's buddy and Imoen
Shoudl i change anything?
As far as i see it, for the early part of the game, the more the merrier!

The games difficulty all depends on what order you try to explore each area in.... you really should be just stickin to the paths untill you've completed both the mines & dynahier rescue as kobolds & gnolls are dead easy to kill... also with low level characters if you focus alot on ranged combat you'll slaugter everything, i always pick dagger proficiency with mages for this reason. (unlimited stacking tweak helps significantly here to).
Also make yourself a simple custom AI to handle characters autoswitching their weapons without interfering with spell casting helps prevent them dieing easily too... the default scripts suck they always change weapons in the middle of casting spells :(
I like having both good & evil in the party, it keeps the dialog interesting... and when they do end up having a tiff, i jump in and kill the one i dont want myself.
To balance out the party after that happens he'll want to pick up minsc & dynaheir to give him a strong fighter & a mage to replace Xzar & Monty (as a theif u shouldn't have monty anyway... conflict of trades, only need one theif in the party)

As far as BG1/2 mods go, take anything with Ghostdog's name on it. He is one of the most dedicated IE modders out there.

The best Baldurs Gate mods I have ever played were Neverwinter Nights which adds multiplayer, Knights of the Old Republic which gave it a Star Wars facelift, Jade Empire gives it an fantasy ancient Chinese atmosphere, Sonic Chronicles which somehow uses Sonic the Hedgehog to make a strangely fun RPG, Mass Effect gives it a more original space feel unlike KOTOR, and Dragon Age is an HD texture pack.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/c3922e57/i_see_what_you_did_there.jpg