Baldur's Gate: Lives

I previously completed BG2 (but, not the expansion) and just picked up BG1 off of Good Old Games.  I then linked them using BGTutu.

I rolled a gruff Ranger.  He's a red-headed double axe wielding beast.

Haters Gonna Hate

From a role-playing angle, he's a loner, but has a soft spot for bubbly small folk.  I'm expecting he'll have maybe one or two party members.  He hates meddlers, almost as much as he hates city slickers. He's rather not have to go through towns and just spend his time wandering and tending to the woods.

Anyhow, I ran into a small problem while playing - I was abusing the save/load system.  I'm not sure I came out of a single fight on my first go (okay, maybe a couple) and I definatley just butted my head against some tough fights until the dice were in my favour.  It feels really lame to do this and takes away a lot of the tension game.  I was thinking that I should play "hardcore", one and only one life, but considering the punishing difficulty of the BG series, that was just too masochistic.  Instead, I took a cue from old-school video games and decided that 3 lives plus the opportunity to earn some more is the way to go.  Every time my character levels, he gets a life.  The initial 3 lives should give me enough opportunity to get through the growing pains of understanding a new classes gameplay and the extra lives should compensate for the difficult ambush fights.  I still expect to see a lot of Candlekeep through new faces.