Hi

I want to know that if you dual a lets say, fighter/mage then if it is a level 20 on both the fighter adn the mage then is it as good as a normal fighter or a normal mage would be on level 20?And what about if i play a multiclass,is it the same thing?

Thanks

in multiclassing you gain levels in both classes at once. when you dual class you stop gaining levels after a certain point and start gaining them in your new class. The character is equally as strong as somone of that class and level, plus they have the added bonus of the skills and hp and such of the second class as well. If I am not mistaken they take 1/2 of what your normal hp for that class would be if you have 2 classes and 1/3 of the hp if you have 3 classes. for instance if you are a fighter mage then you have 1/2 the hitpoints of an x level fighter plus 1/2 the hit points of a y level mage, but you have all the y & x level abilities of both classes. This is how it works to my knowledge. i hope this answered your question

Also, note that with duals, you must get 1 level higher in the 2nd class than the first to get benefits of the 1st class back again. Typical levels for dualing are 9 (in SOA) or 13 or 15 in SOA/TOB. The reason for this is that it's typical to use a fighter class as the first one, and at 9th level they get another proficiency point, at 13th they get some more speed (IIRC an extra half attack), and at 15th they get another proficiency point (there's another one at 12th as well, but if you're already 12th, why not go to 13th?)

The reason why is that usually you'll dual a fighter/ranger to a something else (for example, I'm running a 9th level ranger/12th level cleric right now).

When dualing, the first class (which stops gaining XP) can be a kit. The most popular duals include:
Kensai --> Mage
Kensai --> Thief
Ranger --> Cleric

The reasons for the above are simple. With a Kensai/mage dual, you get the Kensai's HP and speed and natural AC bonuses, and can get grand mastery in quarterstaff and 2*s in 2 handed weapon style. Then, most people go and get Staff of the Magi (which is a very powerful quarterstaff). It's a very useful dual for soloing, as immediately after you dual class, you can start memorizing new spell (which give you XP, so you'll level up rather quickly). Also the Kensai/mage can wear a robe (typically the robe of vecna, found on the bonus merchant Deidre on the second floor of the adventurer's mart), which will improve his AC somewhat.

The Kensai/thief is also a very popular dual, mainly because you'll get the Kensai's benefits (speed, grand mastery, Kai), and then will be able to backstab for huge damage. It's therefore a very useful class. Furthermore, if you're very high level and have TOB installed, you can get the Use Any Item ability, which will let you wear armor (and thus negate the Kensai's lack of armor).

Finally, the Ranger/cleric dual. This character is very similar to Anomen, abilitywise, although he can only get 2 stars in any weapon (as opposed to anomen's grand mastery). However, being a ranger/cleric will, when you get the ranger abilities active again, give you access to all the Druid spells (not the High Level Abilities of TOB though). Of particular interest are Insect Swarm (3rd level) and Insect Plague (5th level), which are both quite powerful (especially the latter- it WILL disrupt mages VERY well).

On the multiclassing, I'm not a big fan of it. I believe that Azrael has the HP thing right, but multiclasses tend to be slow levelers. They also do get benefits, but if you're with a big party, it'll be rough. On the other hand, they happen to be quite popular to solo with, because you'll have plenty of XP and be able to get to high levels in all your classes.

Finally, not that your total levels (in TOB) cannot sum to more than 40, AND you cannot get more than 8 million XP. There is a patch on Baldurdash that allows you to get to level 40 in your second class, experience permitting. This is the ONLY safe XP cap remover available for use with TOB.

multi classing IS VERY slow in leveling, because it divides the experience you get between two different classes, and you still need to get the same amount of experience as normal to get to the next level, so starting a multiclass character out can be a slow process where you have a fairly weak character for quite a while. If you did want to have multiple classes I personally would suggest going with dual classing your character. That way you will most likely have other characters that are stronger while your character is weak and unable to use the abailities of the stronger class while you gain experience in the new class. Since you can't use the abilities or stats or anything of your former class until you are one level higher in the new class this allows you to protect your character while they gain experience in the new class, whereas if you start as a dual class character you, and your other characters are fairly weak. A very powerful character can be created either way, but I would definitely have to say dualing is easier, but its just a matter of preference.