One other thing, you can change your party members' AI scripts in their respective character record page. Your main character starts out with no AI script by default, all your companions each have their own unique AI script they start with by default. There are a bunch of generic AI scripts that cover the archetypes and you can also create your own custom AI scripts.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm starting to figure this non-turn-based thing out. BW has really spoiled me!

I'm glad you're starting to get the hang of it P. L. It took me quite a bit personally to make the transition. Real-time games are much more chaotic, but also much more realistic. There is a definite learning-curve to controlling not just one, but a party of characters in real-time. It can get quite chaotic, but personally it's the chaos I like since it simulates a skirmish better than any ordered simulation. Just remember that you can pause any time you want to set your strategy.

Chaotic hardly describes it

So far the best bet seems to be for me to hit pause when the bads guys show up so I can decide on my own attack. Then I unpause and see what happens. Every now and then my sword guy stands on the edge of the action picking his nose. And, my Druid never seems to cast any spell without my telling her what to do. Imoen is the only one who is pretty consistently reliable on her own.

So, we're still learning..........

After talking about it here I went back and started playing this game again, man it's been so long. Anyway the default AI scripts for your spellcasting companions generally don't have them cast spells on their own. If you want them to do that then select one of the appropriate class specific AI scripts. Personally I would stay away from any aggressive AI scripts for mages, or make sure your mage(s) don't have any area of effect spells since computer controlled mages have a nasty habit of blowing up your party with AoE spells.

Out of curiosity, have you run into Noober yet? And if so, is he still alive?

I'm on my fourth map - Beregost. I gave up and completely started over a couple of days ago so I could be somewhat less of a klutz.

Anyway, I haven't run into Noober yet, but I'm curious about the guy after your comment...

I hear you. I know I restarted that game a bunch of times, mostly at first, then later when trying out different character classes and/or combinations. For curiosity's sake what class(es) is your main character? My current character is a Fighter/Cleric, which I consider to be one of the best two multi-class combos using those rules (AD&D version 2), the other being Mage/Thief.

After scrounging around a bunch of Baldur's Gate forums desperately looking for some sort of guidance, I found a thread that talked about different builds for the main character. The posters felt that a Mage was most difficult character to build. That, of course, was my current choice. So, that meant restart number 1.

The same forum seemed to feel that the easiest build was a Ranger, so that was my second guy. However, since I had no feel at all for the fighting, I was still in big trouble all the time. That meant multiple re-loads. Well, apparently, the BG developers wanted to punish people like me by increasing the number of enemies you face when you re-load constantly. As a result I couldn't take more than a couple of steps without having a wolf on my doorstep. Restart number 2.

The current guy is still a Ranger. However, I have invested some money in a good bow, so I am surviving more encounters than before. The fighting is getting smoother, and I am hopeful that this time I have a character who can make it.

It takes forever to get to level up! Fortunately I spent an eon re-rolling so I could start with some decent stats. Thank you so much for your help - I really do appreciate the feedback and moral support....

Yeah you will wind up reloading quite a bit, there really is no way around that without cheating. Even as someone who's played through the game to it's entirety about a half dozen times (not counting restarting without finishing the game) I still wind up reloading a lot. There is no limit to how often you can save so go to town. The game is REALLY HARD at the beginning when you are level 1 and anything can kill you quickly. I wound up relying on Imoen a lot early on because she was more powerful than I was at the time. It does get slightly easier once you go up a level or two and are no longer a pathetic weakling.

And yes it does take a long time to level up, especially as a Ranger since Rangers, Paladins, and Mages take the most amount of exp to level up (Thieves the least). It takes me even longer since I'm playing a multi-class character which means splitting exp between classes. The game is also really, really unforgiving as you can wander into areas you have no business being in at low levels and get obliterated by enemies way stronger than you. I'd personally much rather have that than games such as Oblivion where the baddies scale to your character so you're always fighting enemies around your level or games that are more linear where you simply won't be able to reach higher level areas until you progress further in the game.

Character building is way more complicated in Eschalon than in BG.

BG Ranger: Str: 18/# Dex: 18 Con: 18

Minimize Wis & Int.

Everything else in Charisma. If you intend to port to BG2 than take a thought for wisdom, but none of the Ranger spells are more useful than the damage they could've been doing in the round they were casting.

Put your weapon proficiencies in bows till you can't anymore. Then swords. Third proficiency could probably be something blunt like staffs for slash resistant enemies.

VERY MINOR VAGUE NON STORY SPOILERS BELOW

Gameplay: Use a composite bow to kills everything. Have lots of arrows and kite with another party member. If you don't mind party member spoilers, I can tell you about a similar Ranger you can pick up near the starting outside area. The two of you can, with enough arrows, kite any not ranged character (minus non hasted, and two other characters) infinitely. The two of you can also kill any mage before they can really do much casting and you can out damage nearly any other ranged character in the game (minus certain mercenaries with magic arrows) at level 2 or 3.

END SPOILERS

BG MAGE (choose a school unless you want to be weaker, whatever is opposition to divination be strongest):

Str: 10 or so Dex: 18 Con: 16 Int: 18 Wis: Minimize (18 if going to TOB) CHA: Any extra points can go here.

Dex can be lower. It stops mattering by the end of the game.

Proficiency: Slings

Gameplay: Kite everything until you have lots of spells. Then charm, explode, summon, slow everything to kingdom come.

tl;dr

Kite everything = win

The saga continues. I'm finally in Nashkel, where I met Noober. He is still alive, but it took a bunch of tooth gritting to not whack that obnoxious turd. Oddly, he reminds me of a real person I used to know

The oddest thing that has happened is my joining up with the ranger Kagain. He was a great addition to the group for a while, then he suddenly started attacking the other members of the party. The first time I thought it was an aberration, but after he killed Jaheira I decided that he had to go. Can't figure out what ticked him off.

Your party members won't always necessarily get along, especially if they have wildly different alignments and/or beliefs. I'm a bit surprised no one has gotten down to fisticuffs with Viconia in my group yet. Her and Kivan get into some nice verbal spats but no physical violence... Yet.

I'm learning that BG is a very complicated game to play. And, of course, my reference point on how things ought to work is Eschalon - but the two are not always parallel.

One big difference is the way leveling up seems to work. My Ranger just went up to Level 3. He has 2 proficiency points each in bows and long swords. He earned one more point to spend, and I wanted to put it into bows. No way, period. All I could do was to add a third weapon when what I really wanted was to become a better archer

Any warrior class characters (Fighter, Ranger, Paladin) can specialize (2 ranks) but only Fighters can advanced specialize (3 ranks+) so you will never be able to get another rank in bows as a Ranger.

I'd recommend looking up Baldur's Gate Trilogy (http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/bgt). It allows you to play through Baldur's Gate I, Tales of the Sword Coast, and Baldur's Gate II Shadows of Amn all as one game using the Baldur's Gate II engine.

It's really very good and seamless. And being able to use the BG2 engine is a great help as well.

I guess I should mention I have no idea if its possible to do on Mac, but with Parallels I don't see why not!