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mystral: I have to disagree with that.
The spell to summon skeletons is great (...) 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.
Skulltrap is capped at 9d6 just like fireball since the maximum mage level is 9 in BG, it has a short casting range and doesn't always explode immediately. The level 5 mage spell Animate Dead is also a level 3 cleric spell, there's no scroll to learn it from for mages in BG.

Having every spell available for scribing as pure wizard can be useful in theory but with less spells to cast per day you loose a lot of flexibility and the specialization bonus is very useful in reality.
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kmonster: Skulltrap is capped at 9d6 just like fireball since the maximum mage level is 9 in BG, it has a short casting range and doesn't always explode immediately. The level 5 mage spell Animate Dead is also a level 3 cleric spell, there's no scroll to learn it from for mages in BG.

Having every spell available for scribing as pure wizard can be useful in theory but with less spells to cast per day you loose a lot of flexibility and the specialization bonus is very useful in reality.
Yeah the whole "oh high level stuff doesn't matter if you're only paying BG" argument doesn't really hold water imo.
I don't know about other people, but typically when I play BG 1, it's with the idea of playing the whole saga and importing my BG 1 character into BG 2 later.
Therefore, when I make a new lvl 1 PC, I'm also thinking of playing him at lvl 20+, so having skull trap available on a mage does matter.
Skull Trap is not only powerful because it has a higher limit, but also because its damage type is different which makes it a lot more powerful than firewall which does fire damage and as you know a lot of enemies have very high fire resistences. Also, since it does not explode immedietly, you can use it to lure enemies and inflict devastating blows.
I've never been one to make the best strategic leveling or character choice. I like to do what I want and suffer the consequences. That said, mage/fighter may be more consequences than you'd be willing to bear.

I personally would keep going pure mage. You could become a real badass. And your High STR is still very useful for when you give yourself some protections and you start your weapon-swinging.
Thank you people !

I would probably better ask earlier :D but anyway I will go on pure mage and benefit from my high STR - I think there is this "tensers transformation" later in the game which will give me many good bonuses - I had this spell in IWD2 and I was sad that I do not have better stats with my mage :D

Next time I would probably chosse Elf and fighter/mage or fighter/cleric sounds great to me :D