In my quest to solo BGII and ToB with the most ridiculously powerful (legal) classes, I have decided to solo a Ranger->Cleric. My cleric/mage is already rather nasty.

But I can't decide at which level to dual. I intend to dual wield hammers and flails, so level nine should give me enough weapon proficiencies to specialize in hammers, flails and slings, and put three in dual wield.

But level 12 will improve thaco and stealth (though not usefully). Will it improve APR over level 9? Level 12 also requires requires ridiculous amounts of exp. Though exp comes quick in a solo game, pure fighter types struggle to complete some sections, I'd think, and gaining exp would be hit-n-run slow.

Ideas welcome...

level 9 will give you a solid dual-wielding cleric with some combat bonuses - also level 10 cleric comes quickly like you say

level 12 give you one proficiency * that you won't really need but will cost you some cleric XP and time for not that much difference imo

level 13 gives you an extra 1/2 attack per round which is significant if you want to major on melee (this would be the 'solo with TOB' dual point of choice i think)

(from a pure power perspective if you want to do a lot of melee i think a multiclass ranger/cleric beats the duals)

enjoy - i'm playing a beastmaster through BG1 at the moment with an eye to dualling at 13

I say go with C/R Multi-Class. You get *all* Priest spells. And HLA`s from both classes if you have ToB. Wich is just insanely good.

If you are playing just SoA, then best to dual class (no access to HLA). If you are playing ToB, then multiclassing just rules with the HLA. If you do want to just dual class, then if playing SoA dual at level 9 and if playing ToB dual at level 13 (the extra 1/2 attack does make a difference).