You need at least 17 strength to be able to dualclass to fighter..

As soon as you switch classes you can't get additional levels in the first class. If you want to progress in both classes at the same time create an elf or half-elf multiclass (or even better a gnome fighter/illusionist).

As human dualing from mae to fighter doesn't work well, fighter dualclassed to mage is much better, if you switch after reaching level 3 (to illusionist or conjurer is even better for the extra spell per day) you get extra hitpoints and proficiencies and can still reach the highest mage levels.

Pure mages have disappointingly few spells so specialists (or with other class levels) are more fun to play.

There are two ways to select multiple classes.

DUAL CLASSING: Only Humans can do that. You stop advancing from your first class and continue with your new class. However, you wont be able to use your first class abilities until you advance ONE LEVEL higher than your first class.

Example. Lets say you are level 7 Fighter. You dualed to a mage. Now you will be as if you started the game as level 1 mage class and you wont be able to benefit from your Fighter skills. You will only benefit from the high health. As soon as you become a level 8 mage, your Fighter abilities will unlock. However, you can NEVER advance from your Fighter class from now on.

That is why it is not a good idea to start the game as a mage and then dual to a fighter. You will make the start of the game very hard for yourself, then even harder when you turn to a fighter and when you finally unlock your mage classes they will be pretty useless.

MULTICLASSING: Any race except Humans. Here, you select what you want to become at the start of the game and continue to advance in both classes at the same time. Lets say you are an elf and you chose Fighter/Mage. You will start the game as Level 1 Fighter and Level 1 Mage. The experience you will earn will be divided between those two classes. You will then continue to advance each class sepertaly. Keeep in mind that you will earn half of the health from each class level up. Lets say you have 16 CON. You should recieve 6 health at level up normally. But you will reecieve 3 if you are a fighter/mage.

I personally think multiclassing works better, especially if you are new to D&D.

I'd say it balances out nicely. Non-specialist magi get a tougher start, but throughout the game they can collect more spells than specialist mages.

I agree. Specialist mages get one extra spell to cast per rest at the cost of losing a whole bunch in their opposition school. It's just not worth it. The only (evil) specialist (npc) mage worth the effort has cheating gear: Edwin.

It's not worth it when the Mage is your only arcane spellcaster.

But having, say, a Specialist Mage and a Bard in the party, works out fine - because then the Bard can learn the spells from the Specialist Mage's opposing school, and every spell can be cast by someone in the party.

Also, consider that when a Specialist Mage casts a spell from their school that involves an enemy saving throw, the enemy gets a penalty to that saving throw. This isn't documented in the in-game kit description or in any official game manual, but players have discovered it through extensive testing. It's apparently hard-coded in the engine, and always has been (both in the original games and Enhanced Edition.)

The Baldur's Gate wiki does mention it: http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Specialist_Mage

I don't believe it for a second. Saving throws are handled by lists, as most other things. Nothing will convince me that the engine is designed to treat specialist mages differently.

Pure mages are for collecting spells, specialist mages are for playing the game. The low number of spells per day and level you can memorize is very limited while there are lots of spells to learn even if you ignore one spell school.

I think you are vastly overstating the effect that one extra spell per level has on the game. It's less of a problem if you've got multiple arcane casters, but missing out on a school can be annoying since every school has at least a couple of extremely useful spells. Of course, if you've got multiple arcane casters then the one extra spell is less relevant anyway.

If you actually want tons of casts per rest, sorcerer is the way to go, not specialist mage.

Sure, but sorcerer class was not available in the classic BG1. I agree that in BG2 sorcerer is the way to go for a pure spell-caster, but in BG1 this is not an option.

Or Cleric with high Wisdom. At 18 Wisdom, you get 2 1st level, 2 2nd level, 1 3rd level, and 1 4th level in bonus spells.

This is less useful in BG2, because the Wisdom required to get bonus high level spells becomes rather ridiculous, and the game (unlike some other games) doesn't boost your stats by leveling or other common means. (There are apparently 3 Wisdom books in BG1, but that only takes you to 21 unless you use New Game +.)

I guess you're thinking about another game with characters grinded up to level 30+.

In Baldur's Gate it's different. An extra spell per day and level does make a big difference there. You start with 2 instead of one spell per day and even at the highest accessible level in the game you have 2 instead of 1 casting of the highest spell level (and the benefit of extra castings at lower levels too).

For the most part, time is not a resource that needs to be managed. If you run out of spells, you just rest so you can cast more. Unless those extra couple spells are the difference between success and failure in a single combat, they aren't particularly relevant. Specialist mages cripple themselves to a degree in order to achieve a degree of convenience. In Baldur's Gate, it's simply not a good trade.


In an actual oldschool D&D game, though, being a specialist is a totally different mage experience, since your spell selection is much more varied and you can really actually specialize. In the BG games, your specialist is more defined by their opposition school than their specialty. It just doesn't translate well.

Areas usually have more than one battle and resting after every battle (and reloading until you aren't interrupted any more) is not the most fun way to play the game and even if it's only one battle the additional spells can still be used for additional buffing to make you stronger.

Illusionist is considerably better than pure mage. Just do a level by level comparison, there's no level at which the pure mage is more powerful or fun to play but the difference is very big at some levels.

At creation illusionists get better rolls since 16+ dex are granted and you have even the option to create a gnome for 19 int and saving throw bonus.

At level 1+ you can use the additional 1st level spell to get shield for 6 AC bonus or decide a battle with the sleep spell (and near the end of the game an additional magic missile will be welcome).
At level 3+ you can also use the bonus level 2 spell to buff/protect with blur/strength for example.
...

Necromancy spells aren't powerful enough to even this out, especially since the spell slots can be used for usually more powerful non-necromancy spells instead.

I have to disagree with that.
The spell to summon skeletons is great (I remember it being a major part of my strategy to kill Sarevok back when BG came out since it cost him about 2 rounds to kill all those skeletons) and skull trap is very useful, especially in BG 2 since its damage is capped at 20d6 instead of 10d6 for fireball.

More importantly, 1 extra spell per level isn't that much, especially at higher levels, and is unlikely to make a serious difference in fights, while the flexibility of having every spell available can be very useful. That's especially true since every NPC mage is either a specialist or multiclassed, and their specialty often makes them pretty useless (Xan...) except for Edwin.