I had a basic idea of how everything was working, but not the details. I was still very young when I started playing and for that it was a rather complex game (and still is). Trial and error I suppose. And reading helped, too.
I had buddies who played table-top with me when I was eight or nine and they were ten or eleven (yeah, that didn't go super well), but I did learn what different classes were and what stats were good for what class, so I just went from there. I learned a lot as I went, but figured it out.
My brother borrowed it from a friend. I remember it was at the beguinnig of the summer 1999 and what a great summer we had! Years after I changed my copy of Neverwinter Nights for the copy of Baldurs we had played that summer! I still keep it as a treasure :-) I had previously played Eye of the Beholder with my brother so I understood part of the gameplay of Baldurs.
Well - my first contact with the BG was just as it was released in '98 or '99. It was my first contact ever with AD&D so I had similar understanding problems just as @willmcclure72 And what can I say - I've been in love with fantasy ever since
After ferw years, as I had met few friends with similar interests, we started playing paper AD&D and it ruled even more Just imagine what Your imagination can imagin :P
I was 12 when my older sister offered me a beautiful box containing "Fallout" and "Baldur's Gate". My mistake was to OPEN the box and try the game until I was 14 years old because the game seemed too violent for me...
Not reading the manual and trying to understand by talking with some NPCs. Then, adventure calling for me, I jumped outside of Candlekeep without knowing how to use a potion... the wolves I met were glad to have their first meal...
Then I promised myself to not be under prepared for any kind of encounter and I leveled up my team by going back and forth from Nashkel to the Gnoll fortress... until I reached lvl 7 with my party (took me several days). I continued my game by following the plot, and entered the fearsome Nashkel mines with a fully equipped and high level group. The rest of the game was a piece of cake...
D&D Highschool - the new teen drama show from ABC family
Brandy: "Oh my gosh Toby, get away from me you diseased gibberling! Your clothes are like, totally 2:nd edition hand me downs, I can't like, be seen with you" Toby: "Shut up you 4th edition harpy! Everyone knows you're only popular because you wear that stupid cloak of charisma!" Professor Firebead: "Break it up you two! Or do I need to send you to principal El-Minister's office again?!" Brandy & Toby: "No please! We don't want to be mazed again!!" Professor Firebead: "Then get a move on! You're late for transmutation class!"
Next on D&D Highschool: Toby uses hide in shadows to sneak into the girls locker room, gets discovered and looses -2 reputation. Brandy critically fails the Aganazzar's scorcher spell and burns down the school gym.
Back then I was like uhm 8, 9? I didn't actually read anything considering tutorials. Just wanted to start straight. Of course I was kind of failing, but I had fun. And some years later, I was able to do my first real playthrough.
I had an idea of the basic DnD D20 mechanics, but it had been a very long time since I had had a go at PnP as a teenager (which was briefly at that).
The first PC I created was a mage who was promptly annihilated within an area or two of Candlekeep by bandits. Then realizing how devastating ranged weapons were in BG1, I tried out a fighter and got myself a bow! I found that more survivable. But I still wanted to be able to spellcast. I ended up making a half-elven fighter-mage for my first full run through the game.
Most glaring ignorance of the game for me: For that first game I made an entirely custom party and played in MP mode, lol. As such I completely missed out on the NPCs! I still enjoyed the game tremendously, though. I mean, no, there were no the NPC banters. But still I rather liked the party. Even if just through their unique combinations of gender/class/skills/weapons abilities/custom portraits/custom soundsets, how I used them as a team in battles, etc., they still more or less assumed a distinct personality. With no frame of reference yet for what I was missing out on (i.e., the game's NPCs and their dialogs), I didn't feel deprived. And in a way, it placed the emphasis more on the main plot.
Anyway, on the second run through I realized what a wealth of content there was with all the NPCs. So I was actually very stoked. It was clear what immense re-playability the game had.
I would add that some of the most enjoyable games I played over the years were with custom parties in MP. An 'Arthurian Knights' party of 4 paladins, mage, and cleric-mage was great fun. And an all-specialist-mage party was another.
When I was 11 I got to play bg1 just after it's release. Being a little kid who almost had no clue what they said in the game since English isn't my motherlanguage I Didn't go to friendly arms inn on my first try, I took the bottles of something or another from the tall green-wearing man with a child with him. Went to Nashkel with a two-man party. You can guess how well that went. Now, NEXT time I played I went to the inn, with the tall funnily speaking man with his mean servant with me. Took the nice couple with me. DID NOT like the woman but kept her around since the nice guy would've left. so THIS TIME at Nashkel, something happened while down in the mines, now what could that be?
I remember the first time our english teacher asked us to write an essay, I was 9 or 10 (english isn't my native language). How priceless her face was when she saw words like swords, daggers, morningstar, knight and thieves when her course where all about flowers, pretty colors and "where is brian ?" "Brian is in the kitchen".
Epic educationnal win !
But yeah first play I didn't understand a lot. But I knew I had to have good starting characteristics. I threw dice for hours. And my ranger proficient in small swords was armed with two handed sword because it was cooler. I didn't notice his missing rate xD I died against xvart, I died against the friendly arm inn mage, I died with wolves, and the half ogres after beregost, and I was afraid of Nashkel like it was literal doors to hell.
THAC0 and AC were mysteries to me until WAY later. I simply couldn't get my middle-school brain around the reverse logic of a lower score actually being better (for this reason, I was glad they changed 2nd edition's THAC0 to a more intuitive 'Attack Rating' in the 3rd edition).
I got the game about 10 years old too, didn't have much clue what was going on for a while. Played the game about once a year for 14 years now, my favourite to the end. I think Minsc and Edwin will stay with me until I'm a decrepit old watcher.
The first time I played BG it had been decades since I had played any kind of video game. I had some familiarity with the D&D rules, and what I didn't know was easy enough to figure out, at least to get started anyway. I loved playing the game I think the second I finished my first time through I instantly went through again, and again...so much fun. Can't wait to do it again with the EE.
Hi Guys I'm completely new to the whole BG scene and have noticed that some posts mention reading rules to help understand the game play etc. where do I start? Thank you.
I was 8 years old. I had no idea what was going on. I read the manual like it was a novel, but still had no idea. Unlike other games I played this one seemed so incredibly dark (And it is pretty dark) and gritty. I was almost scared. When I made my fighter I wandered into a building and was almost horrified when the first bounty hunter tried killing me. My heart was beating so fast as that music began and it was one of the first times I saw blood in a game. I attacked him only to see him explode into several large chunks, which mortified my little kid mind.
Little did I know, now at 22 years old, BG1 would remain my favorite game of all time.
@Easysjr Baldur's Gate is based on AD&D 2nd Edition rules, it's a Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. You don't really need to know these rules to play Baldur's Gate, as all the rules of the game are in the manuals and the game isn't completely true to D&D anyway. If you really want to understand the rules, just do a google search for 2nd Edition AD&D Player's Handbook (Revised, TSR 2159), which should yield some results, not really sure where it's available these days, as it's sort of an old system at this point.
Heya, i played baldur's gate originally when i was 5. I had played some AD&D with my brothers so i understood the basic rules of the game. I made a Dwarven warrior with 18/00 strength, 19 constitution and 17 dex. I lost all of my party in the candlekeep catacombs and then i proceeded to finish the storyline with just my main character only to fail hardly at Sarevok. In the end i just played BG2 knowing that i had reached the ending of the first game but without watching the final cutscene etc etc until last year hehe.
Did anyone here have no idea about the way the game was played, stats, hit rolls and all of the AD&D Rules. I acctually had no idea until a couple of weeks ago. I was always like "OMG WHY ARNT YOU DOING DAMAGE" hehe
HAHAHA! Well, I was an pen and paper player so I knewn the rules inn and out,exept that they had changed a couple of rules to make it compatible at an computer
Hi Guys I'm completely new to the whole BG scene and have noticed that some posts mention reading rules to help understand the game play etc. where do I start? Thank you.
WARNING WALL OF TEXT AHEAD!!! Readers beware, side effects include (but are not limited to) severe nose-bleeds, headaches, mild hallucinations (Boo, is that you?) and hunger-pains (tacos are yummey).
@Easysjr You don't need to know that much to be honest, I went into the BG series blind and just learned as I went along (making several mistakes ofc). Here is a summary of some important basics:
1 Thac0 means "to hit armor class 0", and the number actually goes down into the negatives - the lower the better. The whole D&D system is based on rolling a twenty sided die, so if you have a 15 thac0 on your fighter and attack an enemy with 0 armor class, you need to roll 15 or more on the die to hit. Now if the enemy had 4 armor class, you would only need 11 or more on the die - you see armor class also runs down into the negatives - the lower the better. It's a bit confusing I know, but that's how the system was designed. I'm putting this first because it's probably the one thing you can't (easily) pick up by using your intuition.
2 Each class has a primary attribute, this isn't crucial, but it helps alot when making your main character and choosing which NPC's to use in your party. When you create your main character, you'll roll these stats randomly, if you're not satisfied with your initial roll, just keep rolling until you get a good one (as a rule, if you can add up to 15 in every single stat, you have a pretty solid score - then re-arrange them to fit your class naturally). Here's what each attribute does in the game:
Strength - Adds damage and thac0 to melee attacks, determines how much your character can carry as well as how heavy weapons he/she can wield (for instance two-handed swords are heavier and requires a higher strength score to wield than say a longsword or a dagger.) Fighters, Rangers and Paladins usually want to invest here.
Dexterity - Adds directly to armor class and thac0 for ranged attacks (not damage). Every class in the game benefits from a high dexterity, ranged characters and thieves especially (since thieves gain bonuses to their thieving skills based on dexterity).
Constitution - Adds directly to how many hit points your character starts with, and affects hit point gains on every level-up after. Again, this attribute is good for every class in the game - but not all classes gain the full bonuses of having a maxed out constitution, most classes actually only benefit up to 16, while fighters, rangers and paladins gain benefits all the way up to 18 and beyond.
Intelligence - Affects lore (the ability to identify magic items by simply looking at them) and the % chance of memorizing a spell for wizards and bards. It doesn't actually add any more spells, so this attribute isn't as crucial as it might seem for int-based casters.
Wisdom - Also affects lore along with Intelligence, but primarily affects number of spells for clerics and druids (the healer caster classes).
Charisma - Doesn't actually do that much in the game, it makes some quest rewards possible that wouldn't otherwise be etc. but nothing crucial...
Almost all of these attributes also affect certain saving throws, which are basically your characters natural defenses against harmful effects from spells, or perhaps poisons or paralyzing attacks etc. You don't need to pay attention to these overly much, they pretty much take care of themselves, just be aware of what they are and what they do.
Another important thing to note is that attributes don't actually start giving any tangible benefits until after a certain point. Strength works like this for instance:
15 str = no bonuses 16 str = +1 to damage 17 str = + 1 thac0 and damage 18 str = +1 thac0, +2 to damage 18/01-50 = +1 thac0, +3 to damage 18/51-75 = +2 thac0, +3 to damage 18/76-90 = +2 thac0, +4 to damage 18/91-99 = +2 thac0, +5 to damage 18/00 = +3 thac0, +6 to damage
This is as much as you can get on character creation, but the ingame cap is at 25. Strength is the only attribute that has these tiers between 18 - 19, all other attributes simply makes the leap in one go. Fighters, Rangers and Paladins are the only classes that can have a strength higher than 18 (on creation).
3 Classes:
Thieves - Every party needs one. They open locked doors/chests and spots/disarms lethal traps allowing the rest of the party safe passage. They're OK in a fight too, especially if you use a ranged weapon like a bow - or use a stealth attack. If your thief is hidden and positioned behind an enemy with a melee weapon (dagger, short sword or longsword), he can perform a backstab attack to devastating effects...
Fighters, Rangers, Paladins - The heavy hitters and tankers of the game. These classes differ from one another somewhat, but they can all wear heavy armor and wield just about any weapon, and gets the same thac0 and hit point tables - so the core is the same. Fighters can specialize more in weapons than any other class (up to 5 stars instead of just 1 or 2), which grants him more damage and thac0. Rangers can use stealth while wearing light armor, use charm animal skills to tame wild/hostile animals, and detect traps (but not disarm them), on high levels rangers can also cast some rudimentary spells from the druid spell selection. Paladins can heal themselves once per day (lay on hands), detect evil characters from afar and cast protection spells vs. evil, like rangers they also gain access to some basic spells at high levels, but from the cleric spell selection instead. These classes usually make up the bulk of the party, and keeps the weaker classes safe by taking on aggro. You'll want at least one up front, but could easily use 2-3.
Wizards - These guys are very fragile, especially at low levels when they pretty much bite the dust if someone so much as looks at them wrong or a stiff breeze rolls by. Their damage output is also quite weak on low levels, but as they grow in power, they slowly start to outshine pretty much any class out there. The wizard can do almost anything, turn himself into stone to ward of attacks, cast searing balls of fire to clear away whole rooms of enemies at a time, summon creatures, turn invisible... you get the point. You'll definitely want a wizard in your group, two would probably work fine too if you can protect them. Another option is to use one full-fledged wizard, and a hybrid wizard (like say a thief/mage multi-class combo)
Bards - An odd hybrid class, kind of a "jack of all trades" guy. He can cast some wizard spells, use the pick-pocket thievery skill, and use any weapon in the game (but he doesn't hit very hard compared to the fighter classes). Bards also have access to a unique ability, the bard song. This ability buffs the entire party with bonuses, but as long as the bard sings, he cannot attack or cast spells or the song is broken. Bards are definitely fun, but hardly crucial to a party. On high levels (in BG2) they start to really shine and can become very deadly, but for BG1... they're merely OK. Use at your own discretion.
Clerics and Druids - The only classes that can cast healing spells on other characters (technically, paladins and rangers also can, but since they gain their spells fairly late they won't be as potent by then). You'll be dead without one or two of these. There's simply no good way of healing without them (aside from drinking healing potions, but that quickly sinks your economy into the ground). If you have more than one, you can also spread out the healing responsibilities more, and take some of their offensive abilities. Druids can summon animals to fight for the party for instance, and Clerics can summon undead skeletons. In a fight, they are pretty much on par with the thief class.
Multi and Dual-classes - Some races can choose two or three classes on character creation, these characters basically become hybrids of these classes and gain experience in them separately. This may sound completely over-powered, but the problem is they gain experience much slower than single-class characters since all experience is spread out over several classes, they also cannot become as high level since the game uses a level-cap - which means after a character has gained a certain amount of experience points, he cannot gain any more. So while a multi-classed character might be more versatile, he definitely misses out in the long run... you have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. As for Dual-class, this option is only available to humans. It works differently from multi class in that you don't choose a second class on char creation, but rather at a later stage during the game - you actually choose to stop gaining experience in your current class and start gaining experience in a new one. For instance you might be a thief with really high strength, choosing to stop gaining experience in your thief class and start gaining fighter experience. After your new class reaches 1 level higher than your original class level, you'll retain all the abilities you gained in your first class, and continue to level in your new one. Dual-classing is definitely more tricky and should probably only be used once you're familiar with the game mechanics more.
Ok then, I should probably stop writing before I create half an instruction manual. Hopefully, my blabbering will make sense once you get into the game and get some first-hand experience with what I've been talking about, right now it might be a tad confusing. ugh.
I thought tac0 was taco, made my elder brother laugh himself silly,hehe. I knew the rules though, played dungeouns and dragons and d&d advanced on p&p, and bg impressed us crazy whit beeing almost the same as on p&p, ofcourse some thing they needed to change to make it playeble on a pc, but it was flaming identical to an p&p adventure whit animations:-) Amasing who many people who played this game not knowing the rules :-) Its that a good game!
Is there any way we can get Winthal's reply stickied as a "BG rules for beginners" post? Good job on the wall of text, it does the job well!
@Easysjr Winthal's reply has just about everything you need! Also, watch out on these forums as they're pretty spoiler heavy, especially for first-timers.
I remember coming into the game knowing very little. I didn't know anything about D&D apart from what I learned from looking at my dad's old D&D books from the 70's. I didn't learn anything of the rules but absorbed some of the lore and enjoyed the illustrations, a lot of which I remember were pretty poorly done haha. Pretty much the main thing I got from those books are DROW ARE COOL!
So I started up my first BG game with an elf ranger, not knowing what the stats were for I went with a very impressive 15-15-15-15-15-15 for those, and of course I went with the jet black skin.
I don't remember that much about progressing through the game the first time, but I do remember my weird party composition. I had no mages and no thieves. I think I had the PC Ranger, Kivan, Branwen, Viconia, Ajantis, and I think Kagain. I don't know why I didn't pick up any thieves or mages, I probably thought they were too squishy. Despite all this Sarevok still died so what the hey.
I gave Imoen leather armor and a long sword, because I found that it'd do more damage than a dagger or short sword. Ah, proficiencies.
I died so many times, to every assassin I came over, to Kobold commandos and what have you, and I believe I never even got to the Bandit Camp during my first playthrough before abandoning the game for a while. It sure has a steep learning curve!
By now, it's one of my favourite games, one of the few I have actually finished. Way to tell what great a game it is that I got back into the ring again and again until I finally understood it. Maybe takes a certain age to really "get" it, and I guess most of us didn't have that back in '98
Comments
I was still very young when I started playing and for that it was a rather complex game (and still is).
Trial and error I suppose. And reading helped, too.
I had previously played Eye of the Beholder with my brother so I understood part of the gameplay of Baldurs.
It was my first contact ever with AD&D so I had similar understanding problems just as @willmcclure72
And what can I say - I've been in love with fantasy ever since
After ferw years, as I had met few friends with similar interests, we started playing paper AD&D and it ruled even more
Not reading the manual and trying to understand by talking with some NPCs. Then, adventure calling for me, I jumped outside of Candlekeep without knowing how to use a potion... the wolves I met were glad to have their first meal...
Then I promised myself to not be under prepared for any kind of encounter and I leveled up my team by going back and forth from Nashkel to the Gnoll fortress... until I reached lvl 7 with my party (took me several days). I continued my game by following the plot, and entered the fearsome Nashkel mines with a fully equipped and high level group. The rest of the game was a piece of cake...
D&D Highschool - the new teen drama show from ABC family
Brandy: "Oh my gosh Toby, get away from me you diseased gibberling! Your clothes are like, totally 2:nd edition hand me downs, I can't like, be seen with you"
Toby: "Shut up you 4th edition harpy! Everyone knows you're only popular because you wear that stupid cloak of charisma!"
Professor Firebead: "Break it up you two! Or do I need to send you to principal El-Minister's office again?!"
Brandy & Toby: "No please! We don't want to be mazed again!!"
Professor Firebead: "Then get a move on! You're late for transmutation class!"
Next on D&D Highschool: Toby uses hide in shadows to sneak into the girls locker room, gets discovered and looses -2 reputation. Brandy critically fails the Aganazzar's scorcher spell and burns down the school gym.
The first PC I created was a mage who was promptly annihilated within an area or two of Candlekeep by bandits. Then realizing how devastating ranged weapons were in BG1, I tried out a fighter and got myself a bow! I found that more survivable. But I still wanted to be able to spellcast. I ended up making a half-elven fighter-mage for my first full run through the game.
Most glaring ignorance of the game for me: For that first game I made an entirely custom party and played in MP mode, lol. As such I completely missed out on the NPCs! I still enjoyed the game tremendously, though. I mean, no, there were no the NPC banters. But still I rather liked the party. Even if just through their unique combinations of gender/class/skills/weapons abilities/custom portraits/custom soundsets, how I used them as a team in battles, etc., they still more or less assumed a distinct personality. With no frame of reference yet for what I was missing out on (i.e., the game's NPCs and their dialogs), I didn't feel deprived. And in a way, it placed the emphasis more on the main plot.
Anyway, on the second run through I realized what a wealth of content there was with all the NPCs. So I was actually very stoked. It was clear what immense re-playability the game had.
I would add that some of the most enjoyable games I played over the years were with custom parties in MP. An 'Arthurian Knights' party of 4 paladins, mage, and cleric-mage was great fun. And an all-specialist-mage party was another.
i had no idea about any of the rules, and i'd rest for a week to heal up my party using the first heal you get once you rest in nashkel
heck, i even just found out what thac0 does a few days ago, and ive completed bg 1 and 2 more times than i can remember
good times
Epic educationnal win !
But yeah first play I didn't understand a lot. But I knew I had to have good starting characteristics. I threw dice for hours. And my ranger proficient in small swords was armed with two handed sword because it was cooler. I didn't notice his missing rate xD I died against xvart, I died against the friendly arm inn mage, I died with wolves, and the half ogres after beregost, and I was afraid of Nashkel like it was literal doors to hell.
Little did I know, now at 22 years old, BG1 would remain my favorite game of all time.
Baldur's Gate got me addicted to D&D, not the other way around.
@Easysjr You don't need to know that much to be honest, I went into the BG series blind and just learned as I went along (making several mistakes ofc). Here is a summary of some important basics:
1
Thac0 means "to hit armor class 0", and the number actually goes down into the negatives - the lower the better. The whole D&D system is based on rolling a twenty sided die, so if you have a 15 thac0 on your fighter and attack an enemy with 0 armor class, you need to roll 15 or more on the die to hit. Now if the enemy had 4 armor class, you would only need 11 or more on the die - you see armor class also runs down into the negatives - the lower the better. It's a bit confusing I know, but that's how the system was designed. I'm putting this first because it's probably the one thing you can't (easily) pick up by using your intuition.
2
Each class has a primary attribute, this isn't crucial, but it helps alot when making your main character and choosing which NPC's to use in your party. When you create your main character, you'll roll these stats randomly, if you're not satisfied with your initial roll, just keep rolling until you get a good one (as a rule, if you can add up to 15 in every single stat, you have a pretty solid score - then re-arrange them to fit your class naturally). Here's what each attribute does in the game:
Strength - Adds damage and thac0 to melee attacks, determines how much your character can carry as well as how heavy weapons he/she can wield (for instance two-handed swords are heavier and requires a higher strength score to wield than say a longsword or a dagger.) Fighters, Rangers and Paladins usually want to invest here.
Dexterity - Adds directly to armor class and thac0 for ranged attacks (not damage). Every class in the game benefits from a high dexterity, ranged characters and thieves especially (since thieves gain bonuses to their thieving skills based on dexterity).
Constitution - Adds directly to how many hit points your character starts with, and affects hit point gains on every level-up after. Again, this attribute is good for every class in the game - but not all classes gain the full bonuses of having a maxed out constitution, most classes actually only benefit up to 16, while fighters, rangers and paladins gain benefits all the way up to 18 and beyond.
Intelligence - Affects lore (the ability to identify magic items by simply looking at them) and the % chance of memorizing a spell for wizards and bards. It doesn't actually add any more spells, so this attribute isn't as crucial as it might seem for int-based casters.
Wisdom - Also affects lore along with Intelligence, but primarily affects number of spells for clerics and druids (the healer caster classes).
Charisma - Doesn't actually do that much in the game, it makes some quest rewards possible that wouldn't otherwise be etc. but nothing crucial...
Almost all of these attributes also affect certain saving throws, which are basically your characters natural defenses against harmful effects from spells, or perhaps poisons or paralyzing attacks etc. You don't need to pay attention to these overly much, they pretty much take care of themselves, just be aware of what they are and what they do.
Another important thing to note is that attributes don't actually start giving any tangible benefits until after a certain point. Strength works like this for instance:
15 str = no bonuses
16 str = +1 to damage
17 str = + 1 thac0 and damage
18 str = +1 thac0, +2 to damage
18/01-50 = +1 thac0, +3 to damage
18/51-75 = +2 thac0, +3 to damage
18/76-90 = +2 thac0, +4 to damage
18/91-99 = +2 thac0, +5 to damage
18/00 = +3 thac0, +6 to damage
This is as much as you can get on character creation, but the ingame cap is at 25. Strength is the only attribute that has these tiers between 18 - 19, all other attributes simply makes the leap in one go. Fighters, Rangers and Paladins are the only classes that can have a strength higher than 18 (on creation).
3
Classes:
Thieves - Every party needs one. They open locked doors/chests and spots/disarms lethal traps allowing the rest of the party safe passage. They're OK in a fight too, especially if you use a ranged weapon like a bow - or use a stealth attack. If your thief is hidden and positioned behind an enemy with a melee weapon (dagger, short sword or longsword), he can perform a backstab attack to devastating effects...
Fighters, Rangers, Paladins - The heavy hitters and tankers of the game. These classes differ from one another somewhat, but they can all wear heavy armor and wield just about any weapon, and gets the same thac0 and hit point tables - so the core is the same. Fighters can specialize more in weapons than any other class (up to 5 stars instead of just 1 or 2), which grants him more damage and thac0. Rangers can use stealth while wearing light armor, use charm animal skills to tame wild/hostile animals, and detect traps (but not disarm them), on high levels rangers can also cast some rudimentary spells from the druid spell selection. Paladins can heal themselves once per day (lay on hands), detect evil characters from afar and cast protection spells vs. evil, like rangers they also gain access to some basic spells at high levels, but from the cleric spell selection instead. These classes usually make up the bulk of the party, and keeps the weaker classes safe by taking on aggro. You'll want at least one up front, but could easily use 2-3.
Wizards - These guys are very fragile, especially at low levels when they pretty much bite the dust if someone so much as looks at them wrong or a stiff breeze rolls by. Their damage output is also quite weak on low levels, but as they grow in power, they slowly start to outshine pretty much any class out there. The wizard can do almost anything, turn himself into stone to ward of attacks, cast searing balls of fire to clear away whole rooms of enemies at a time, summon creatures, turn invisible... you get the point. You'll definitely want a wizard in your group, two would probably work fine too if you can protect them. Another option is to use one full-fledged wizard, and a hybrid wizard (like say a thief/mage multi-class combo)
Bards - An odd hybrid class, kind of a "jack of all trades" guy. He can cast some wizard spells, use the pick-pocket thievery skill, and use any weapon in the game (but he doesn't hit very hard compared to the fighter classes). Bards also have access to a unique ability, the bard song. This ability buffs the entire party with bonuses, but as long as the bard sings, he cannot attack or cast spells or the song is broken. Bards are definitely fun, but hardly crucial to a party. On high levels (in BG2) they start to really shine and can become very deadly, but for BG1... they're merely OK. Use at your own discretion.
Clerics and Druids - The only classes that can cast healing spells on other characters (technically, paladins and rangers also can, but since they gain their spells fairly late they won't be as potent by then). You'll be dead without one or two of these. There's simply no good way of healing without them (aside from drinking healing potions, but that quickly sinks your economy into the ground). If you have more than one, you can also spread out the healing responsibilities more, and take some of their offensive abilities. Druids can summon animals to fight for the party for instance, and Clerics can summon undead skeletons. In a fight, they are pretty much on par with the thief class.
Multi and Dual-classes - Some races can choose two or three classes on character creation, these characters basically become hybrids of these classes and gain experience in them separately. This may sound completely over-powered, but the problem is they gain experience much slower than single-class characters since all experience is spread out over several classes, they also cannot become as high level since the game uses a level-cap - which means after a character has gained a certain amount of experience points, he cannot gain any more. So while a multi-classed character might be more versatile, he definitely misses out in the long run... you have to decide if the tradeoff is worth it. As for Dual-class, this option is only available to humans. It works differently from multi class in that you don't choose a second class on char creation, but rather at a later stage during the game - you actually choose to stop gaining experience in your current class and start gaining experience in a new one. For instance you might be a thief with really high strength, choosing to stop gaining experience in your thief class and start gaining fighter experience. After your new class reaches 1 level higher than your original class level, you'll retain all the abilities you gained in your first class, and continue to level in your new one. Dual-classing is definitely more tricky and should probably only be used once you're familiar with the game mechanics more.
Ok then, I should probably stop writing before I create half an instruction manual. Hopefully, my blabbering will make sense once you get into the game and get some first-hand experience with what I've been talking about, right now it might be a tad confusing. ugh.
@Easysjr Winthal's reply has just about everything you need! Also, watch out on these forums as they're pretty spoiler heavy, especially for first-timers.
So I started up my first BG game with an elf ranger, not knowing what the stats were for I went with a very impressive 15-15-15-15-15-15 for those, and of course I went with the jet black skin.
I don't remember that much about progressing through the game the first time, but I do remember my weird party composition. I had no mages and no thieves. I think I had the PC Ranger, Kivan, Branwen, Viconia, Ajantis, and I think Kagain. I don't know why I didn't pick up any thieves or mages, I probably thought they were too squishy. Despite all this Sarevok still died so what the hey.
I died so many times, to every assassin I came over, to Kobold commandos and what have you, and I believe I never even got to the Bandit Camp during my first playthrough before abandoning the game for a while. It sure has a steep learning curve!
By now, it's one of my favourite games, one of the few I have actually finished. Way to tell what great a game it is that I got back into the ring again and again until I finally understood it. Maybe takes a certain age to really "get" it, and I guess most of us didn't have that back in '98