It's a hard game.
I grew up playing games like Bards Tale and Curse of the Azure Bonds, I love Dark Souls and think the difficulty is wildly over-rated, but this game…
I think its a pride issue. I want to take the combat option every time, be the hero, kill 'em all, but it's really not always viable. Doesn't stop me from trying, though.
In most games you're the center of the universe. Everything and everyone is made just for you. Someone mentioned before the assassins in Candlekeep at the start of Baldurs Gate. The ones who you turn to gibs with a single blow. Why would anyone send a 1hd assassin after a fucking Baal Spawn?! Have you even seen the slayer form he can turn in to?! Well, it just so happens that because everything is made just for you, you'll only run into kobolds and hobgoblins when you're low level and only meet the harder encounters as you're ready to handle them.
AoD takes a different approach. Similar to real life, you actually can get in over your head. The streets are dangerous! You have to keep your wits about you. If someone sends an assassin for you you better believe that it's up to the task. Sometimes, as unheroic as it may seem, you just have to lower your gaze, skulk away and live to fight another day.
I think my last play was an assassin with 7STR 10DEX 8PER, who used the fastest dagger I could find in main hand and a slower dagger with poison in offhand to start the fight. He went alright, but I still had to reload a bunch of times in the really tough fights.
Sometimes it can feel like you're just reloading until you get lucky with your THC. Miss that net, fail the dodge and you know you've lost already. Time to reload. You can start to wish you could just reroll the hit instead. You might think "maybe I'll just not do this fight", but then you wonder what kind of loot they have and the pride kicks in again and you refuse to let the game win. It requires quite an investment on the players behalf to play with this mentality but its so hard to shake it. I can't think of another game where I've rerolled my character so many times so close to the beginning. I think a lot of people with this attitude will put the game down, intending to return when they can be bothered, but then end up always too tired to be bothered and play something more fun.
Yes, I thought carefully about that word 'fun'. I had easy there for a while, but enjoyment is subjective and while the game they play will most definitely be more easy, they'll also have more fun playing it.
I had something else to add but it's really late and I just keep going blank and am having trouble articulating myself, so…