Ok, Newbie here-- just got Baldur's Gate 'coz I heard it was the best RPG EVER. I'm fairly familiar with ADD rules, played the board games MANY times in me youth, what's throwing me with this game is the controls. As in, how do you keep your characters firing arrows, bullets, what not, rather than rushing in ? I was doing all right until I got to the FAI , and then wow, Tarnesh wiped my ass. :-D I had group set to (I thought) use their ranged attacks, but when I clicked the attack button, damn if they didn't all rush in and try to melee! I thought if I had them equipped with bows/slings they would attack with those, which they did, but at melee range. *rofl* If I have them equipped with bows, do I need to click "Guard" and drag an area between them and the enemies or what? Do they (the NPC's) cast spells on their own initiative, or do I have to click each character during battle and micromanage what they do? Color me stupid, but I am somewhat overwhelmed. *grin* A little intoxicated too... :-)

Ah, so that's what scripts are about! The manual was rather vague about them, Thanks!

I did just the opposite as blackakari. I turned off all the scripts (see one of the bottom right button on the user interface). And then when I issued an attack order, they just attack with what they have equipped.

Make sure your guys have ammo. That's a leading cause for them rushing into melee when I was playing.