And if you're anything like me, you think these games, and D&D in general, sucks!
I started playing Baldur's Gate quite a few years ago, and in the beginning I quickly learned that the lower the ac the better. Obviously when I exchanged my leather for plate mail and my ac dropped, i picked it up pretty quick. Ofc there was the damage (1d4) that I actually cracked the book to learn a bit about, but again, comparing a few weapons I pretty much knew what was better.
Regardless, I enjoyed the games long before I knew all the rules, and its a shame you couldn't come to enjoy a game that has thier algorithms hanging out. That being said I never could get into the table top game. A lot of people say they hate 4E because it's dumbed down. True, it is. But it's a shitload funner for new people who want to focus more on the game than skipping through the book to see what rule exception should be applied. Also, sleeping everytime after my level 1 mage fires his few spells off in the first encounter would've been a drag. It's a streamlined game designed for a simpler, faster type of DnD not intended for hardcores but to draw new players (like myself).