But isn't that an issue with all role-playing games? There's an element of chance in all of them.
It may seem somewhat worse in the BG/IWD games, because fighter classes don't really have many special abilities, they're basically limited to just one kind of attack (and wizards/clerics have few spells at low levels). So at low levels it looks like you don't have many options and are dependent on luck.
Anyway, imo it's true that AD&D has flaws as a system (e.g. the spell memorization for mages/clerics, which makes those classes somewhat inflexible and encourages meta-gaming), and certainly the combat system in BG/IWD isn't perfect either (e.g. the lack of options for fighters mentioned above). imo it's still above average as far as crpgs go, but it might indeed not be to everyone's taste and could be considered clunky/not very fun. OP might well not enjoy it at all.

Following your description of what YOU like: go with Icewind Dale.
Following what I like: go with Icewind Dale xD

Basically it's like this? You want action and a challenge with every encounter? Go with Icewind Dale.
You want a story badly told (GREAT STORY, but the narrative not as much), with the same style of combat but with the focus on the lore and yourself? Go with Baldur's Gate (the 2nd one improves the narrative A LOT, though still doesn't reach Planescape Torment, the best story ever).

Neither is a ARPG, they both play in real time with seconds and minutes being used as rounds and turns, but you can pause wherever you want in order to give orders, CANCEL ACTIONS (a godsend) and give new ones, etc... Also, setting up auto-pause in the options gives a "mostly" turn-based game, but it really slows down the battles.

Icewind Dale has a simple (REALLY SIMPLE) yet greatly told story. Is like someone reading a book (it literally is haha) to you, so you're both espectator of a tale and tactician moving and "role-playing" your party. There is more dialogue than in BG, in general, but is mostly to tell that story. There's no interruption by NPCs, no romances, every side-quest is focused on "kill this thing or save or retrieve this from this monsters..." and everything is related to combat (even one of the cooler areas, The Severed Hand, an elven tower, has lots of combat with some heavy backstory about what happened there which is not mandatory to read). The game is linear, sidequests "are on your way" doing the main quest (something I actually appreciate because I hate putting the world on pause to "go help someone fishing...") and the dialogues actually let you role-play (unlike BG1 where everything is "pretty much" standarized).

So, like I said, go with Icewind Dale. DO REMEMBER: This is AD&D 2nd Edition (so lower armor is better), and if you don't know anything about balancing a party ask for advices on what kind of character actually take with you (a bunch of wizards are going to be tough to handle on the beginning, but then massacre the entire game)... or if you have the Enhanced Edition there are some pre-made parties.

Icewind Dale is just so charming and of the right length at about 30 hours without the extra content. That game is just brimming with atmosphere.

Play both - but play Icewind Dale Enhanced Ed first.

I know. And it often annoys me in other games too, but for some reason it feels more egregious to me in these particular games. I feel like other games tend to give more options to influence those random "dice rolls", through positioning, skills etc. and in general make the combat more involved, and allow for leveling up faster, giving even more options and improving stats, raising you sooner from that low "can't hit anything" status. I feel like there's just more to do in combat in most other games than in BG. At least before you get to a reasonably high level and finally have plenty of spells to use.

But, obviously, that's how I look at it. I'm not arguing it's objectively terrible.

Well, I can see your point, especially at low levels BG/IWD is indeed like that. As I indicated in my previous post, imo it comes down to the lack of options for fighter classes and the inflexibility of the magic system (spells that have to be memorized in limited spell slots instead of a mana-based system). That can certainly feel clunky and limiting. I still liked it. But it's certainly not the easiest system to get into.

My view (there are the original classic versions of the games, not the Beamdog "enhanced" versions, but I presume these quite well fit into the remakes as well):

Baldur's Gate 1 + expansion:

- Generally I was quite bored playing it. There wasn't that much pushing me further in the game, but I did it anyway.

- I recall being annoyed that in this game, at least in the base game, you seemed to be restricted to pretty low level stuff (spells etc.). Apparently the idea was that you get to those higher level stuff in the expansion pack and/or the sequel. It just annoyed me how I constantly had to cast some low level healing spells multiple times because you had nothing better to heal your party.

- I didn't find it that story- and dialogue-heavy. The story was generic blaa blaa blaa something something, the kingdom is running out of iron ore and there is some sinister evil somewhere who is probably behind all this zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Overall though, I am glad I played the first game + expansion because you get to know some NPCs and enemies in it that you meet also in the sequel. Playing the sequel without playing the first game feels the same to me as watching the movie Aliens without seeing the first Alien movie, or watching Terminator 2 without first seeing the first Terminator movie. Sure you can do it, but still...

Also, you get to continue BG2 with the same character that you played in the first game, so that is also an incentive to first play the first game.

Baldur's Gate 2 + expansion:

- This had much more detailed and heavier story, and also more flexed-out characters than the first game.

- Also this seemed to concentrate more on your party's internal dialogue and interactions between your party members, which were also affected by what you do. So if in the first BG game Minsc was just some lunatic character that said insane and silly things while fighting, in BG2 he actually tells something about his life and has dialogue with you and the other party members, in his insane way. You can also choose to have some romance with some of your party member(s) etc. While I generally prefer combat and stat heavy RPGs which are lighter on "character development" and story, I still enjoyed this in BG2.

- The combat was generally good, but I recall being annoyed by some semi-boss fights where your character or party seemed to die if you had bad luck or had not prepared exactly the right protection spells from those instant death spells.

Icewind Dale + expansion

- Lighter on the story than the BG games (especially BG2), and there really isn't any real character interaction e.g. in your party. It is just a generic fantasy party you have generated.

- More concentrated on combat etc. than story.

- I preferred IWD combat to BG combat because there seems to be less of those "instant death" things in combat.

Icewind Dale 2

- Mainly more of the same as the first IWD game. However, unlike in BG + BG2, you can't load your character or party from the first game and continue here, you have to generate a new party (or use a pre-generated party, but to me they didn't seem optimal, so it is better to generate a new party from a scratch.

- I don't recall if I had the same "issue" in the first game, but I find some chapters or locations in IWD2 too "puzzle-like". I am currently in the game in chapter 5, in the Dragon's Eye level 4. I am supposed to keep going back and forth in the level in certain order meeting different characters which babble insane things, and then there is some odd "time travel" aspect in it where you are actually in the earlier time and day when you first met the characters, etc.

I am just not enjoying that "ok try to figure out how to solve this whole god damn level, what triggers what events and in what order you need to talk to different people" gameplay. This is also made worse in this particular level because in order to get to different places, you need to pay quite a lot of money to the ferryman, meaning you better prepare or know where to go next and not needlessly revisit areas or visit them in the wrong order... aaargh!

I just want to search the area and kill monsters, sometimes meeting some big dragon with dramatic dragon music that is harder to kill etc. (IWD games, as well as at least BG2, have lots of that too... I recall BG2 had the best dragon fight in it.)

Anyway, I suggest you play them all (IWD and BG games). If you like any of them, there is a good chance you enjoy the rest as well. IWD is maybe a bit more about combat, and BG (at least BG2) is somewhat more story-heavy and character interaction-heavy.

People whine about the BG + IWD combat system (semi-realtime with autopause), but I actually find it among the best RPG combat systems I've seen, as long as you set the autopause options correctly. It flows better and feels more natural than the long and slow turn-based system, but isn't as chaotic as a true realtime combat system.

These are the autopause options I suggest you set (the default values are something different), these I take from my current Icewind Dale 2 game. That is, the game/combat is always automatically paused to wait for your orders, with the enabled occurrences:

Character Hit: disable
Character Injured: enable (you probably want to initiate a healing spell or drink a healing potion)
Character Death: enable (you probably want to reload a save game anyway, unless you are some hardcore player freak)
Character Attacked: disable
Weapon Unusable: enable (you probably want to change the weapon, e.g. if you ran out of arrows with your bow)
Character's Target Destroyed: enable (you probably want to hand-pick the next target for him/her, instead of them blindly selecting a new target)
End of Round: disable (unless it is a very hard battle where you want to pause as often as possible; in one IWD2 dragon fight, I temporarily enabled this, and even the "character hit")
Enemy Sighted: enable (very good if you use e.g. an invisible rogue as a scout; the game pauses as soon as he/she detects any enemies and you can prepare for combat right after that)
Spell Cast: disable
Trap Detected: enable (so that your party stops as soon as a trap is detected, and you don't just walk into the trap; then your rogue or spellcaster can try to disarm the trap)
Center on Party Member: enable (useful so that you can see by whom the game was autopaused)

Just remember that on top of those settings, you can pause the combat at any point of time manually as well.

Also, related to the above, I think I disabled "Party AI" so that it is me who always tells each party member who to attack and with which weapon/spell, and they don't try to figure it out themselves.

Well, Baldur's Gate is more text heavy, exploring oriented, and it's more varied when it comes to problem solving, it has more emphasis on Rol playing.
Icewind Dale it's similar but more action oriented, has more combat and less chit chat.

IWD has a lighter story and character-interaction, but still I am unsure if it necessarily has more combat than BG series.

In my eye the main difference between the combat is that BG (at least BG2) seemed to have more of "special encounters" where you fight one or few very powerful creatures (like some ancient dragon king or whatever), while in IWD games there are maybe more of the "you fight hordes of weaker enemies" gameplay.

I don't quite recall how the area of effect combat spells were in the BG games, but at least in IWD games I find it very satisfying when my wizard and a druid cast spells on hordes on enemies which e.g. stop them from moving, and then various spells that cause damage over time to all of them (like the druid has those spells where different kinds of spikes and stones raise from the ground to hit anything above, while the wizard naturally has all his poison/acid cloud spells, fireball spells etc.). It feels almost like some kind of strategic combat game where you set up a choke point for the hordes of enemies, lure them to come through there, and then just spam them with all those area damage spells as fast as you can. Yeah, take that!

Arcanum

If you're only going to play one of them, I would recommend Baldur's Gate. The BG games are more varied and interesting RPGs, imo, with a great focus on plotline, characters, dialogue and roleplaying (as well as combat). Icewind Dale is also a great game, but it is much more combat-heavy and linear, with less of the exploration, freedom and roleplaying that BG offers.

Imo, Baldur's Gate 2 is the best isometric WRPG ever made (followed closely by Fallout 2 and Planescape Torment). If you are an RPG fan, you need to play it. However, I would recommend starting with Baldur's Gate 1. Imo, it hasn't aged as well, is a bit less interesting and has less variety in environments and enemies than the sequel, but it is still a classic game and worth playing to see how the story starts and to start at level 1, if you are not familiar with how D&D works.

BG2 starts at level 7, which can be a bit overwhelming for players new to D&D. One problem with Icewind Dale (for new players) is that you have to create a whole party of 6 characters at the start. So, if you're not familiar with the ruleset it is easy to make a party that doesn't 'gel' together too well.

Generally speaking, the 7 levels really do not matter, it’s less than the difference between a level 39 dual and level 40 single class character in the end, I.e, you could have level 39 mage/level 7 warrior, or level 40 mage. Depends on what you want at the end, perhaps for a mage solo class is best, but the rest are fine. I would start most characters with 7 levels in fighter, then dual at first level up to what you want them to be, that way you get some nice start bonuses, and still get a full character at the end.

Marked as best answer.

My point about BG2 starting at level 7 is that it is starting someway up the difficulty curve, so there will be a lot of spells and abilities to get to grips with all at once for a player who is completely new to D&D. And it's not just about the player's own character - Imoen, Jaheira, who you meet in the first dungeon, will be starting at L7 as well. You're going to need a balanced party, with thief, cleric, mage as well as fighters, so I think starting at L7 is going to be quite challenging for a new player, whichever way you cut it.

Yes, I have the Dungeon Siege games on Steam from many years back. Like you, I played a few hours and then just drifted away. I'd planned to pick them up on GOG and play through... but... never happened.

My problem was always that even though I knew better, I kept making some ridiculous "themed" parties instead of something balanced. Like "hey, let's make it Thorin's Company!" and playing with one wizard, one halfling thief and four dwarf warriors.