This one is obscure, but its sorta D&D related so I figure this board is my best shot 
Years and years ago I played a game called "baldur's gate." I'm hoping a lot of you have heard of it. If you havn't, I highly recommend checking it out. I'm an avid computer gamer and I still come back to this one over and over again, and it's still, imho, the best computer representation of D&D ever made. If you're in this catagory, check out a program called "easytutu," which applies various updates that let the game run on new computers.
Anyhow, I'm playing again and I'm making a thief. One of the first party members you get is Imoen, another thief. Since she's redudant with my main character I thought I would just dual-class her to mage immediately at 2nd level instead of waiting any longer. Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Is there a major downside aside from loss of thieving skills (which I don't care about anyways)?
As I said, very specific question on a somewhat obscure topic, but maybe I'll get a bite. Thanks in advance.
Makes sense. Still here's my case.
In BGII I created an assassin(thief kit-not many changes, just a little less skill points and a poison ability). I never felt that Imoen was redundant though. These 2 characters were always my openers-using their stealth to catch the enemy unaware. Imoen casted a spell, made the bait then my character appeared suddenly and backstabbed the foolish enemy or covered her with archery. Thus, although there was some overlapping, I didn't consider Imoen's Thief aspect redundant.
Of course, if you do not care much for stealth, then by all means proceed.