I'm wanting to dual class my own thief to a mage. It seems that 5/6 level is the best time to do this. What abilities should I emphasize for this guy? In other words, what thieving abilities would be particularly useful to my character as a 6th or 7th level mage (and beyond for BGII), keeping in mind I will have another full thief in my party to take care of things as well.

If you´re gonna have another thief, i´d recommend getting your stealth ability high, and leave trap detecting and pick locking to the other thief.

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http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/ertai2.gif "Sigh" -Ertai, Captive of the Blinding Angel

Why stealth ? It can be done easier with invisibility. I'd concentrate one on detect traps. Probably your dualed thief/mage. Detecting traps while invisible lets you disarm them and will not break the invisibility. I would put the other's points in lockpicking.

JR

Damned i lost cousin Jan's techno gloves

In my opinion it is better to dual from thief to mage at level 5 instead of 6. Both will get you to level 7 mage, but when dualing from 5th level thief you can regain your thieving abilities much quicker and have them available for more of the game. If you dual at level 6 you're going to be "stuck" as a plain mage for 60,000 experience points worth of gaming. A thief gets his backstab damage increased at level 5, so there really isn't much gain in getting an extra level as a thief unless you want some additional points to put into your thieving skills.

Anyway, if you want to move your PC to BG2, you could dual him at the beginning of BG2 - you will gain more HP and backstabing (level 9 x4)- (level 9 you will achieve installing ToSC - so you will have mage but poor and no thieving abilities at the and of BG1 and the beginning of BG2). If you plan to move to BG2 I would recommend dualling at level 9 (higher abilities, more HP, more profieciency slots for thief).

Zbyszek

If you're concerned about maximising BGII, wait until then to dual as you use the available XP more effeciently and have higher HP etc (level 11, IIRC).

Otherwise, for me, I don't like having to take a T/M to the front of the party to detect traps, although the invisible thing would make you less exposed. So I'd concentrate on pick locks first and foremost, allowing your other thief to concentrate on detecting and stealthing (all the better to backstab you with, my dear http://www.ironworksforum.com/ubb/no...iles/smile.gif ). Again, that's just me. I tend to have a stealthy trap detector because, in BGI, I tend to clear screens with just the thief.

Once I regain my thief abilities; will I be able to use thief weapons, or will I be completely limited to magely weapons, so that I'd be back"stabbing" with a staff?

You will be able to use thief weapons. The character will have same restrictions as multiclass thief/mages.

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http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/memnoch/ertai2.gif "Sigh" -Ertai, Captive of the Blinding Angel