[Sazerac]

I agree with what is said as Nalia as a Thief. The main benefit of her being a thief dualled to mage is the ability to use a bow which, as was pointed out, she does extremely well. The "17 Intelligence" limitation on spells can be easily countered with a Potion of Genius when you're wanting to scribe more spells. However, I never really understood why they put two female thief-mages in the game (Nalia and Imoen) who are almost identical in abilities except that Imo is a slightly better thief. Personally, I think they should have left Imo as a pure thief such as in BG1 and then had Nalia as the "Good Mage" that you can take along.

For pure spell power, nothing beats Aerie, with the ability to cast all mage and cleric spells (albeit she is limited to mainly lower-level ones). She can also wear helmets with her Cleric abilities and wield some good weapons like the Mace of Disruption or the Staff of Rhynn +4.

I played one game with my main Bhaalspawn character as a berserker dualed to Thief, with Minsc, Anomen, Nalia, Aerie, and Imoen in tow. By the time I got to ToB, the mage power was almost ridiculous. Almost every battle could be won by having them cast their spells and having my "tanks" clear up the rubble that was left. After you get to higher levels, two mages is more than enough; three is insane. Next time I played, I left Nalia and Aerie out and took Keldorn and Jaheira (myself playing a "Wild Mage" [ToB only]), picking up Imoen later as a backup mage and thief, which was more balanced.

-Sazerac