The first thing you do when you start a new game is to create your character.

As well as having different basic characteristics, the different races have access to different classes. Only humans can dual class. Don't hesitate to explore the possibilities before making your choice.
I recommend to begin with a human or a half-elf.

Each class gives access to a specific gameplay, all are viable, but some are more useful or more fun to play than others (for example, Bard isn't great).
I recommend playing a basic class for your first playthrough: warrior, mage, thief, druid, priest (or warrior/priest, thief/mage, etc).
Don't hesitate to take a look at the different subclasses of each class (for example, the Wild Mage subclass is interesting for mages).

Baldur's Gate uses the D&D alignment system. The choice of alignment at the start of the game is not critical, as the choices the player makes over the course of the game will have a greater impact on their reputation (which affects the way NPCs treat them) than their alignment.

The usual technique here is to roll the dices until you get the number of points you want, storing the best roll you've got so far in the memory as you go, and being patient.

If you find this part tedious, you can set the points to maximum automatically by pressing CTRL-8. If this isn't possible, you need to add the line :
SetPrivateProfileString('Program Options','Debug Mode','1')
in the LUA file in the folder containing all the game's saves and portraits (which is not the same as the folder containing the game itself) among the files on your computer. If this still doesn't work, I suggest you google a solution that works with your computer and your version of the game.
It is possible to use this method and not use all the points obtained.

Brief description of each characteristic:

• Strength: affects the hit chance and damage of melee weapons, as well as the weight limit of items the character can carry in their inventory --> max out for melee fighters
  
• Dexterity: affects the hit chance of ranged weapons, the armour class and the thieves' initial number of skill points --> max out for ranged fighters, thieves, and possibly tanks.
  
• Constitution: affects the number of HP --> max out for tanks, very useful for all characters.
  
• Intelligence: affects the number of spells mages can learn, the number of mage spell slots and the success of mage spells --> max out for mages.
  
• Wisdom: affects saving throws against enemy control spells, and the number of spell slots for divine spellcasters --> max for priests and druids.
  
• Charisma: affects the attitude of NPCs towards the character, the repelling of undead from priests and certain paladin skills, the number and the chances of success of sorcerer and bard spells --> max for paladins, sorcerers, bards, and any character you intend to send to talk to NPCs and shopkeepers

If you play a mage, you're not going to send your character into close combat, at least at the start of the game, because you'll have 4HP, so I recommend putting the point into a ranged weapon (slingshot or darts). The slingshot is more reliable, but there are more powerful darts: if you have a slingshot+1, you'll get +1 to all your attacks, whereas you can only rely the bonuses of the projectiles for darts.

If you're playing another class, I'd advise you to choose where to put your proficiency points according to the role you want your character to play in combat.
If you want to build a character that does damage, you'll want to put points into weapons. You can take a look at the most powerful weapons in the game in the Appendices to see which weapons you'd prefer to put points into.
On the other hand, if you want to build a tank character, you'll probably prefer to put points into "sword and shield combat", for example, to increase his armour class.

As in D&D, divine spellcasters (priests and druids) have direct access to all their spells, but mages fill their grimoires by learning spells using spell scrolls.

When creating a mage, the player is asked to choose two spells that are written in their grimoire (learned by the character), and which spells they store in the two spell slots they have at the start of the game (the spells they can actually cast). This choice is not critical, as important spells become available quickly during the game. This choice is more critical for sorcerers because the number of spells they can learn is much more limited.

I'd advise you to write in the grimoire "Magic missile" to do damage, and another spell among the following, depending on your preference:
- a crowd control spell: sleep
- a utility spell: identification
- a roleplay spell: familiar
--> See Appendix "The most important spells".

I recommend memorising two magic projectiles, or a magic projectile and another spell, in the two spell slots.

For a 'utility' thief :
The two most useful skills are "Trap Detection" and "Lockpicking", because "Trap Detection" is essential for getting through certain dungeons, and "Lock Picking" can be frustrating not to have.
In general, I prefer to go up to 50 in "Trap Detection" first, then 90 or 100 in "Lockpicking", then 75 in "Trap Detection".

Weaker locks can be forced by a character with sufficient strength (select a weapon in attack mode, and click on the chest to be forced), but more powerful locks require a thief with a good amount of points in Lockpicking

Then, depending on your preference, put the extra points into "Hide in the shadows", "Pickpocket" or "Traps".
"Hide in the shadows" is used for sneak attacks, and can be useful for a few side quests. "Pickpocket" is mainly useful for side quests. "Traps" can be useful in difficult combats, without being essential.

For a thief focused on scouting and combat :
You'll want to max out "Hide in the Shadows" first, so you can scout dungeon rooms to prepare yourself better before taking your whole group there for the combats, and make sneak attacks. You'll then want to max out "Traps" to do more damage.

I recommend to start with Normal.

The two most useful mechanisms:

• The game automatically saves at the start of each chapter. You can also save manually. You can also make quicksaves by pressing Q (you have to press L for quickload, to go back to your last quicksave). Don't be afraid to abuse quicksaves.
  
• You can press Tab to see the names (or lack thereof) of npcs you come across, and highlight objects you can interact with, including chests you can search. This is also how you can see the locations of hidden objects. Don't hesitate to press Tab once in each new area.

Mechanics related to the action bar :

• When you select several characters, you'll see in the action bar the actions that a group of characters can do (talk to an npc, attack, get into different formations). If you select a particular character, their action bar will include actions specific to their class. This is where you'll find the thief's actions or the warrior's 'Protect' action.
  
• "Special abilities" and "Use item" icons are added to the action bar when a character gains a special ability or carries an item with a special ability. These abilities are triggered using these icons. "Special abilities" include the protagonist's Bhaalspawn powers, and the druids' shapeshifting abilities, for example.

Don't hesitate to do the tutorial (if you've already created a character, you can save your game, then return to the home page to do the tutorial).

I recommend going around the starting area (Candlekeep) in a clockwise direction the first time you play, talking to all the characters with names and all the tutors, and doing the training suggested.

If you play as a druid or priest, or recruit one to your team later on, don't hesitate to try out the different spells when you get to them. The same goes for mages, but as mages learn their spells one by one, it's less easy to miss a spell.

The main interest of this game is its narrative quality, so read! Read the descriptions of items and spells, the books and the dialogues. It's sometimes useful, sometimes funny, sometimes interesting, always well written.

• Activate the "quick loot" to pick up fallen objects much more easily (the red diamond indicated by the arrow).
  
  
• There's a 'scripts' section in each character's profile. It's in this section that you'll be able to deactivate automatic spell casting and the automatic use of items (both activated by default). I recommend keeping the automatic attack for all characters, and 'Trap detection' for thieves. You may prefer to activate 'hide in the shadows' rather than 'Trap detection', it's easy to switch from one to another. The scripts are individual to each character, so you need to configure the settings you want for each character individually.
  
  
• You can activate and deactivate your group's AI by pressing A or by clicking on an icon in the bottom right-hand corner. This can be useful if you inadvertently disable it, or if you want to temporarily deactivate it to control your group more precisely to get through some areas or for some combats.
  

• When you arrive in a new zone, go to the four sides of the map and click on the edge to unlock the adjacent zones for fast travel. Zones are unlocked as long as you discover them, even if you don't go there.
  
  
• When you're in an area, you can click on "World Map" (shortcut: M) to get a global view of the part of the area you've discovered, and click on "Area Map Background" to see the accessible parts of the area: this is useful if you want to see paths that aren't necessarily clear on the drawing of the area.
  
  
• BG1's maps are much emptier than BG2's, so if you're bored of exploration and prefer to move quickly from quest to quest, there are detailed maps available on the internet. I recommend using these maps for the outer areas (including the towns), but discovering the dungeons on your own.
  
  
• It may be handy to have the level 3 mage spell 'Clairvoyance' once in the town of Baldur's Gate. This spell reveals the entire map of an external area.

There are three containers that make inventory management much easier. You can put all items of a certain type in the corresponding container, the whole thing only takes up one inventory slot, and the weight of items put in containers is not counted in the weight carried by characters.

The three containers are :

• a potion bag: you can buy this in High Hedge from Thalantyr ;
  
• a scroll case: you can get this in Beregost by doing a quest for Firebead;
  
• a bag of gems: in Neera's inventory, Neera is a recruitable companion;

If you don't want to recruit Neera, you can recruit her temporarily to take her bag, or kill her and get the bag. But the bag of gems is the least useful container of the three, in my opinion, so you can do without it, or at least start the adventure without it, if you want to wait a while before recruiting Neera.

The items you want to use must be placed in the quick-use slots, then selected from this bar. Items generally take one turn to be consumed or to take effect. This applies to potions, special books and spell scrolls. Profane spell scrolls can either be used by mages to learn the spell, or can be cast by mages from a quick-use slot (this enables them to circumvent the limit on memorised spells).

Some items have special abilities that can be activated from the "Use item" icon, which will appear in the action bar of the character wearing the item.

It's counter-intuitive, but the lower the better.

I'll explain the mechanic with a practical example.
Imoen is a human thief who happens to have 17 in Intelligence. You can therefore dual class her as a mage.
You want her to have at least 90 skill points in 'Lockpicking' and 75 in 'Trap Detection'. So you wait until she's a level 5 thief who has enough points in the skills you want, before dual classing her as a mage. From the moment she is dual classed as a mage, her thief skills are locked, and she becomes a level 1 mage. Only when she becomes a level 5 mage, she regains her thief skills. The experience points she then gains will only increase her mage levels.
At that point, you'll have a regular mage with 5 thief levels.

You can choose to dual class her as a mage when she has fewer thief levels, so that she recovers her thief skills more quickly after the dual classing, but you'll have a less skilled thief. Or you can choose to dual class her later to have a more skilled thief, but you'll have to deal longer with one thief less and a mage with a lower level than the rest of your group.

Only humans can dual-class. The conditions for dual-classing are listed in the descriptions of the classes in the game.

• For battles against enemies with special powers: cast resistance spells on the character with the highest base resistance, and send them out in front so that the enemies attack them. This will usually be your tank, but against enemies who can charm, you may prefer to send an elf, even if they have fewer HP. If one of your characters has been charmed, you can charm them back to cancel the enemy's charm.
  
  
• For battles against mages: cast resistance and protection spells on your group ahead of the combat. You want to prevent them from casting their spells as much as possible, so use ranged weapons against them first (because the characters can use them as soon as the fight starts, instead of taking time to get within range to use close-range weapons). If the enemies include mages, focus on them first.
  
  
• Beware of the friendly fire.

A party has a maximum of six members: the main character and five companions in general. You can also create a whole team directly, but BG1's colourful companions are an integral part of the game.

I recommend having at least :

• a tank with a lot of HP and defence, who will be the character who will aggro the enemies, on whom we'll cast defence spells before combat, so that the enemies don't attack our companions with less HP or defence. Warrior, paladin, druid or priest.
  
• a character with healing spells. Druid or priest. It's always useful to have a poison slowing spell available.
  
• a thief to detect traps in dungeons and pick locks.
  
• a mage with control spells (and, ideally, fireballs).

All characters end up doing a good amount of damage, so it's not necessary to specifically have a dps.
Some roles can be filled by a single character. For example, Jaheira is a druid/warrior, so she has healing spells, and is also a good tank.

You will come across companions who are recruitable throughout your adventure. There are companions that you will have one opportunity to recruit, and who will disappear from the game if you turn them down, and others who remain recruitable even after an initial rejection.

A companion you've already recruited once will remain in the game, so you'll always be able to recruit them again.

A companion who leaves the group of their own accord because the group is too good or too bad for their alignment disappears from the game (see "Reputation too low or too high" below).

If you recruit a companion when your group already has a fairly high level, that companion will automatically be brought up to your group's level the first time he is added to the group, but only the first time. Points for 'skipped' levels are allocated automatically, which can be annoying.
This system makes it easy to replace one companion with another if you wish, but makes it difficult to leave a companion aside temporarily, then retrieve them later on.

For proficiency points to be allocated to weapons, please refer to the section on weapons in the Appendices.
For points to be spent on thief skills, please refer to the corresponding section in Character creation .

To identify items, you can :

• go to a temple and have the temple identify the objets for you, it doesn't cost much so it's a good solution when you don't have a mage in your team yet
  
• "Identification" is a level 1 mage spell
  
• characters with a high intelligence score (often mages) will have a "lore" score high enough to identify items just by right-clicking on them in their inventory, as they level up

If a character is stuck with a cursed item, you can go to a temple and pay to fix the problem.
"Remove curse' is also a level 3 priest spell, so you can solve the problem without having to pay if you have a priest of sufficient level in your team.

Bad companions can leave your group if your reputation exceeds 18 points, good companions if your reputation is lower than 3, and neutral companions if your reputation is lower than 2 (not included).
The way you solve quests affects your reputation.

To lower your reputation (apart from quests), you can steal, injure or kill an innocent person. This will alert the guards, but a bad playthough involves encounters with guards.
To boost your reputation ( apart from quests ), you can make donations to a temple.

Some companions may also fight each other, but you can usually stop them. Bad companions will criticise you when you do good things, and good companions will criticise you when you do bad things, but you can ignore them.

If the companion still appears in grey in the list of your team members, you can go to a temple and pay to have them resurrected. If they no longer appear in the list, they are permanently dead. If you cared about this character, you can reload a save before their death. Otherwise, you can replace them.

Mages can only learn a limited number of spells at each level, so it can happen that you want to make a mage learn a new spell and there's no room, even though you've made him learn a spell you no longer use. This problem is even more likely to occur if you're playing a sorcerer.
It can also happen that you've put all your warrior's proficiency points into 'one-handed sword', but you've just come across a magnificent +3 two-handed sword.
In this case, you can use a save editor to make a few changes to your character. This very powerful tool should be used sparingly so as not to take the challenge out of the game.

I personally use the EE Keeper save editor, downloaded from its website. All you have to do is install it on your computer (in any location), open the software, go to "settings" then "installation directory", indicate the location of the Steam game and the location of the game saves among your files (these are usually two separate folders). The application is then sufficiently self-explanatory.

This tool can also be useful if you want to play BG2 directly without going through BG1, but still do THE quest involving golden trousers (you'll find out what that quest is in due time).

Damage spells

• Magic Missile (Level 1)
  
• Melf's Acid Arrow (Level 2)
  
• Flaming Arrow (Level 3)
  
• Fireball (Level 3)

Protective spells to cast before combats

• Protection against petrification (Level 1) --> against basilisks
  
• Resistance (Level 2) --> against mages

Protective spells useful during combat

• Charm (Level 1) --> against mermaids for example
  
• Dispel magic (Level 3) --> against mages

Crowd control spells

• Sleep (Level 1)
  
• Immobilisation (Level 3)
  
• Confusion (Level 4)

Boost spells

• Luck (Level 2)
  
• Haste (Level 3)

Utility spells

• Identification (Level 1)

Roleplay spells
They don't have a big impact on gameplay, but I like them.

• Familiar (Level 1): Cast once to summon a pet. This pet will differ depending on your alignment, and will be able to perform certain actions. Warning: if your pet dies, you will permanently lose one constitution point. You can keep it safely in your inventory, but it will then take up a slot. Only the main character can cast this spell.

• Dagger +2 with poison : Dagger of Venom --> good for thieves
  
• Composite bow +1
  
• Longbow +2
  
• Shortbow +2 --> good for thieves
  
• Stun darts
  
• Scimitar +3 --> good for druids (evil group)
  
• Club +2 --> good for druids (good group)
  
• Light crossbow +1 with speed bonus
  
• Heavy crossbow +2
  
• Warhammer +2 : Ashideena --> good for priests
  
• One-handed sword +2 (easier to get): Varscona
  
• Two-handed sword +3 (harder) : World's Edge