swashbuckler10/mageX or multiclass thief/mage - which one

[Sorceress]

with party of Anomen, Aerie, Haer'Dalis, Mazzy, and Keldorn

So, should I pick multiclass character or dualed character for my protagonist? I'm always playing female, so no Aerie, Haer'Dalis and charname love problems.

[fauxpas]

Both options have pros and cons so whichever one you think you'd enjoy playing more, although I'd probably lean towards duel classing myself at whatever level my thieving skills were "good enough".

[wendigo211]

I'd go Swash 10/Mage x, for the following reasons:

• You get an AC bonus that stacks with other sources (-3 IIRC)
• You don't slowdown your Mage progression as much as you would with a multiclass (1 level behind a pure class Mage).
• You'll have Yoshimo while you regain your Thief abilities (although, if you dump your party and go on a scroll memorizing binge you should be able to get back your Thief abilities right after you dual class)
• You only really need a Thief for Open Locks and Find Traps and you have enough Thief levels to max those skills, Set Traps and get a healthy Pickpocket total. Since you can cast Invisibility you don't need Hide/Move Silently

I suppose the downsides are:

• No backstabs, not that it matters since your spells will do more damage anyway.
• No Use Any Device, this one hurts a little, there is some gear from other classes that is nice to have.
• Fewer traps and no epic traps, traps are pretty awesome in BG2, you can wipe out most bosses with them.
• If you plan on playing through the saga, then dual-classing can be a pain. You'll need 160K XP for level 10 as a Swashbuckler, so no dual-classing in BG, and 375K XP for level 11 as a Mage or 535K XP total, so if you dual class in SoD, you'll be a level 10 Mage at the end. Of course you'll probably make up that remaining 35K getting out of Irenicus' Dungeon at the start of BG2. If you're just playing through BG2, it's a pretty painless dual-class to playthrough.