Like most people, I'd like to dual Imoen to a mage, but when is a good time to do that? She's level 6 now, and since I'll be taking here through to the end of BG2, I assume I can wait a little bit longer? Her lockpick is already at 100. I also have Dynaheir.

Sorry I know this question has been asked a lot, I just wasn't sure because I'm playing BGTutu.

Thanks.

In BGII, she has 7 thief levels, with lockpicking at 100 and detect traps at 95, the two skills you really can't do without. Of course, since you are able to decide, you can do it whenever you want.

If you dual her at 6, she'll have 20,000 xp, and you'll need 60,000 xp more for that 7th wizard level. If you dual her at 7, she'll be at 40,000 xp, and you'll need 90,000 xp more to get that 8th wizard level. So both can happen with lots of stuff left to do, but you also want to be considering how long you can go without her thieving skills.

If you don't have additional mods installed only the main character is exported to BG2, so no need for planning for it, just dual as you wish, if you don't have another thief in the party you might just want to keep her pure and enjoy more thieving options like setting traps instead of making her a secondary mage you don't need.

I dual her to mage after she got her 7th thief level. She doesn't get those thief levels active again until deep in the TotSC part of the game though.

If you are planning for the long haul and don't want to devote a space in your party to a character just for covering locks and traps, it's worth the pain now of getting that extra level of thief to top off her skills in locks and traps.

The standard BGII opening set up has her with lockpicking at 100 and finding traps at 95. I probably would have liked to have seen that reversed. Once one has triggered a missed trap, there is no possibility of a redo (without re-loading from a previous save, of course). But if one fails to pick a lock the first time, one can drink a potion or wear a ring and to boost skills and give it a second try.

I dualled her at level 5 in my current game. I kept Safana around to do thieving stuff but Tutu gives her rather crappy skills.

Good advice all around, thank you. I'd mark all as solutions if I could. So, I decided to just go ahead and get her going towards mage now, since she just hit lvl 6. That seems like an alright place. Plus I can start inscribing all the scrolls I've been hoarding. Can't wait to try it out!

Well I've dualed her and regained the thief skills again. Problem is, when I got the skills back all my thief skills are way down. For instance, my open locks skill is reset to 25 after getting it to 100 before I dualed. Do you know what the deal with that is? It kind bums me out and I'm tired of casting knock of each locked container. I would have never dualed if I thought this would happen.

No, that shouldn't happen at all. The only thing I can think of (other than a bug) is maybe you're wearing some equipment that affects your thief skills?

***edit*** Okay< i just checked my game where I'd dualed Imoen to Mage at level 6. I was using her as a trap finder and pick pocket. After regaining her Thief skills, her skill levels were just as I'd left them (100 and 90, respectively). So if it's not something to do with gear, it must be a bug or a quirk of Tutu (I'm using the BGT mod on my game).

Thanks for checking into it for me. I don't think it's a gear thing as I've stripped her and she's still got those shit stats. Man, that's a bummer. I really don't want to start over, but I don't want to ditch her for someone else. The locks aren't a deal breaker but having no way to handle traps well really annoys me. Ugh. Time to look into a way to cheat her stats up.

Oh, and I miswrote earlier--I'm playing BGT, too.

Maybe you can try editing your game with Shadow Keeper to restore her stats. http://www.mud-master.com/shadowkeeper/

Thanks for that. Worked like a charm!

In BGT, when you get to SoA does it keep Imoen et al at their BG I stats, or are they set to standard BG II stats? I've previously only ever used the standard install, so this is my first ever modded run...

I think so, but I'm not 100%. I hope so, as that's kind of the point isn't it? I'm nearing the end of BG1 so I'll let you know when I confirm it.