Second recommendation: Neverwinter Nights (II especially). This is much more straightforward and linear story than Baldur's Gate, but your party AI is very simple to manage.
In the first one, you actually don't - you just choose one person to tag along.
In the second, I levelled up actively, but did not manage the party too actively in combat except excpetionally. I especially liked the second game, it was well written, and the compagnons were very enjoyable.
For openended exploration (with plenty of evil to root out with your sword), Morrowind is to me the standard to which other games should aspire to. I personally prefer it over Oblivion any time.
