Let's Read and also Play Baldur's Gate: Bhaal must be stopped!

[Khay]

Indeed, one unstated premise I saw there--"the PC probably has lower Charisma than Jaheira"--stands out as a big difference in our playstyle.

For sure. I'm not enough of a munchkin to just drop CHA to 3, but I'm very unlikely to play a character with Charisma 15 or higher. The stat just isn't all that important to what I want to do, mechanically speaking, and you can easily find items to fix a CHA deficiency if you really want to. I should probably try a high-CHA playthrough one of these days.

Also I think Xan's class is elf. I don't know how old AD&D is and how much Athans knows of D&D rules but a good writer doesn't think in "classes" anyhow. Otherwise Drizz't wouldn't be a Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger in 3.5. And he isn't the world's best written character anyhow. Honestly the way the book is written it makes me feel that 90% of characters are Fighters or Rogues anyhow. Jaheira is just a Fighter from a weird druidic upbringing.

If you're writing a novel adaptation of 2.5 high-magic computer games in which the protagonist and multiple other major characters are literally half god, you write three high-magic novels, or you say you're not willing to write high-magic novels and let them hire someone else--you don't handwave away most of the magic because you want to write low-magic novels.)

This is an interesting question, I think. Not every work of fiction can be (or should be) Order of the Stick. However, trying to mash the setting and story of Baldur's Gate into a Conan-esque low fantasy story is a real square peg/round hole situation. As Kish rightly noted, most of the major players in this plot are either absurdly powerful mages, or half-gods, or both. The plot about messing with the iron trade could theoretically work in a low fantasy setting, but the Bhaalspawn stuff... not so much. The mismatch will become worse and worse as the plot goes on. Athans does include 'high fantasy' elements when he absolutely has to - the aforementioned Bhaalspawn stuff - but they don't fit in particularly well. He clearly wanted to write Conan instead. We'll really start to see this in the second book.

Also, I've said that I don't want to rag on the books just because they're different from the games, but at some point you have to acknowledge they're meant to be adaptations. If you're translating interactive fiction to a non-interactive format, you obviously can't port the gameplay, but you can and should try to find a way to make the book feel like the game. The BG novels just don't do that.

I know it! Abdel wants to use the dead body to attract Korak and ask his help in guiding them to Cloak Wood. At least is a thing so stupid to think about that I can actually see Abdel pulling it off!

That is something I could see Abdel do! We'll find out if you're right this weekend.