Traditionally people dual her at 7. Not only because it lets you get all the vital skills to basically useable levels (throughout the series of the games thanks to a few thief skill boosting items later on) but also because of the better combat/survival stuff she gets that mages do not. Better thac0 and hp essentially. Also you need at least 90% lockpicking to unlock every lock in bg1 I believe.
While you can pump up those skills in bg1 with potions, such potions are not always accessible easily either due to cost (early in the game) or supply (too much potion use could deplete what the game has available before the end). The only thief skill boosting gear in bg1 is for HS/MS I think.
Also consider that in BG2 Imoen will automatically be turned into a lvl7 thief/lvl8 mage (assuming this isnt changed for bg2ee to make her stay exactly as you had her in bg1 which is NOT how the original game functioned and the ee's tend to try and stay as close to the original as possible). The time it takes to get her thief skills back will be long regardless. As unorganic as it can feel, I have often "paused" my adventuring after dual classing to kill ankhegs to push imoen and any other dual classers up faster. so I can resume the story.
Ultimately the extra 15% will help you later in bg2 and beyond if you decide to keep Imoen and not recruit the new thief character. Imoen's skills wont be rising at all in BG2 so she'll need to rely on whatever she has plus items that can boost her skills. You can rely on potions but I can think of far better things to spend my gold on.
I dual her at lvl 5 ( if I want a better mage) or 6 (if I want a bit better thief skills)
Take it only at face value, I have never actually tested all traps, but if you go 100% i to locks with her and then pump everything into traps, she won't have 100% traps, but that will not matter. You'll still be able to disarm 95% of all traps with traps skill around 80
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While you can pump up those skills in bg1 with potions, such potions are not always accessible easily either due to cost (early in the game) or supply (too much potion use could deplete what the game has available before the end). The only thief skill boosting gear in bg1 is for HS/MS I think.
Also consider that in BG2 Imoen will automatically be turned into a lvl7 thief/lvl8 mage (assuming this isnt changed for bg2ee to make her stay exactly as you had her in bg1 which is NOT how the original game functioned and the ee's tend to try and stay as close to the original as possible). The time it takes to get her thief skills back will be long regardless. As unorganic as it can feel, I have often "paused" my adventuring after dual classing to kill ankhegs to push imoen and any other dual classers up faster. so I can resume the story.
Ultimately the extra 15% will help you later in bg2 and beyond if you decide to keep Imoen and not recruit the new thief character. Imoen's skills wont be rising at all in BG2 so she'll need to rely on whatever she has plus items that can boost her skills. You can rely on potions but I can think of far better things to spend my gold on.
to have her back at chapter 3 (exploring the coast and hunting bandits) , dual her at level 4
to have her back at chapter 4 (cloakwood) , dual her at level 5
to have her back at chapter 5-6 (baldur's gate to final battle), dual her at level 6
to have her back at expansion content (durlag's etc) , dual her at level 7
Take it only at face value, I have never actually tested all traps, but if you go 100% i to locks with her and then pump everything into traps, she won't have 100% traps, but that will not matter. You'll still be able to disarm 95% of all traps with traps skill around 80