Um, in response to the dual from thief to fighter:
1. You can use any weapon the fighter can use.
2. You can put on armor any time you want - u just can't use your thief abilities while in armor.
3. If you dual at level 8, for example, you would have 112 hps starting as a fighter. A thief would have 64. That is a HUGE difference.
Yes going up in levels with the fighter is better for thaco, but you would have been better off with a pure thief. Get the X5 back stab and 100% in everything.
IMO, a thief is kinda useless unless you are role-playing, all u need from them is find/remove traps. That's why a thief/mage makes sense - better hps for the mage plus bow ability, and you double as the find traps expert. In fact, I don't know why anyone whouldn't dual a mage in this game. Doesn't matter what the class! Cleric/mage for better hps and healing for your mage, thief/mage for better hps and find traps, fighter mage so you can waltz around in your globe of invuln with a two handed sword and have over 100 hps - Ranger/Cleric for specialization in blunt weapons and access to druid spells.
In fact, the way this game starts out the first chapter is pretty easy with tons of xp points - your ENTIRE group could start as fighters and immediately dual. Use Imoen for traps in the beginning and minsc for fighting if you want. After chap 1 you will have a bunch of chars with over 100 hps and their new class skills - thief, mage, cleric, whatever!
Dual class is the way to go for this game. BG1 was harder to do this since you start from level 1 and you would prob dual a lot earlier, but this game is PERFECT for dual. Right now I'm playing again with only 4 chars so I can get those 9th level mage spells (Imoen only got to level 15 when I played while my primary fighter got to 19th), and I want to try out all those cool spells.
4 person party:
Half-Orc pure fighter
thief/mage
fighter/mage
ranger/cleric
This combo would probably beat most 6 member parties by the end of the game.
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