I'm not much for dualing, so I'm not sure when's the "best" level to dual a thief, cleric, mage etc into anything. It's surely when you get another feat, another attack or anything else fancy, but I've no clue as to where.
I'm most interested in thieves for the moment, and mostly those who're pretty low-leveled as thieves but still have everything you *need*. As in Trap detection/removal and Lock pick.
So, at what level do you usually dual-class a thief, cleric, mage, fighter, or whatever?
When to dual?
Not to sound mean, but Sytze is right - this is commonly covered.
To your question, it's hard to say, as it depends on your playing style and character chosen.
If you intend on playing through until ToB, then you can afford to change over a little later and gain a few more levels / abilities first, but the best advise I can give you is to always level up as soon as you see the "+" appear on your character (since a few thousand exp could mean a few more levels for your new, and vulnerable, class) and to watch carefully and read the information screen after levelling up. Maybe you care about spells levels, so you wait until you get your first 6th level spell, or maybe you want to get at least 100 points in lock picking for your thief, or an extra proficiency, or an extra saving throw bonus, etc.
Typically, the optimal class point is from 7 to 9 if only playing SoA and 10 to 15 if going to ToB. I like dualling my druids at 12 (since it only takes 300K points to get there so I start building the new class quickly), my swashbuckler at 10, and my mages (if I dual that way) at 8 (almost immediately).
G'luck!
N...
To your question, it's hard to say, as it depends on your playing style and character chosen.
If you intend on playing through until ToB, then you can afford to change over a little later and gain a few more levels / abilities first, but the best advise I can give you is to always level up as soon as you see the "+" appear on your character (since a few thousand exp could mean a few more levels for your new, and vulnerable, class) and to watch carefully and read the information screen after levelling up. Maybe you care about spells levels, so you wait until you get your first 6th level spell, or maybe you want to get at least 100 points in lock picking for your thief, or an extra proficiency, or an extra saving throw bonus, etc.
Typically, the optimal class point is from 7 to 9 if only playing SoA and 10 to 15 if going to ToB. I like dualling my druids at 12 (since it only takes 300K points to get there so I start building the new class quickly), my swashbuckler at 10, and my mages (if I dual that way) at 8 (almost immediately).
G'luck!
N...