Multiclassing Questions

[Shesau]

First of all, ever since I've started playing my party had been affected by a seemingly random Chant spell. The effect will flicker in and out, and I haven't been able to determine what the cause is. Is it a bug, or maybe something my paladin or cleric have been doing? Any ideas would help.

Anyway, the party rundown is like this:

Human Female Paladin
Aasimar Male Fighter (?)/Cleric
Human Male Druid
Human Male Ranger
Tiefling Female Rogue
Drow Male Sorcerer

(I'm a roleplayer, through and through.)

My Aasimar Morninglord of Lathander has two levels of Fighter and ten of Cleric. Initially my focus was on getting as much healing ability as I was able early on in the game, as I'm trying to play with a higher difficulty. However, out of force of habit I simply poured his XP into the Cleric class for the majority of my game play rather than evenly distributing it. Alone he seems to be an effective warrior with his polearm/mace and shield combos - is there any benefit to me leveling him up as a Fighter further?

For most of the game my sole Sorcerer had the arcane stuff pretty well covered, but I'm starting to feel a little bit of a grind now. My tiefling has an INT of 14, which isn't great for a dual to a mage, I know. But since I'm mostly just wanting Magic Missiles and early level disabling spells, would it be beneficial to cross her over to the Wizard class for a few levels, or just keep my Sorcerer on a tighter leash with his magic? (To a point, the druid, ranger, and paladin all have INT scores of 10-12, and most have a charisma score of 16 or lower. They make up the majority of my fighters, so having one convert to magic would be tough.)

[kmonster]

To answer your first question: It's not a bug, it's the paladin's aura of courage which is described in the manual.

About your cleric:
If you have 4 fighter levels you are able to spend feats to specialize in the weapon types of your choice for +2 extra damage. But more casting power is better from the powergaming point of view.

14 int is enough for taking mage levels, you get even low level bonus spells. Multiclassing your rogue with wizard will make your party stronger. You should already have more than enough thieving skills and can even raise them more when levelling as mage. But take a specialist (like diviner or transmuter) instead for the extra spells per day.
Your tiefling will most likely be level 16 at the end of the game, so don't expect too much. You won't get more than 4 wizard levels. You could use spells like mirror image to make this character last much longer in combat or cast cat's grace, but the game will be over before this character can cast level 3 spells or use chromatic orb effectively.

PS: You can only learn mage spells if you have the corresponding scrolls to scribe.

[Shesau]

Ah, thank you! I suspected it might have had something to do with the paladin, but since I did not get a manual with the book I wasn't sure of all the perks of the class. Well, that's certainly neato.

Thanks for the advice! This is the first time I've really delved into the schematics of characters - on previous runs I was "hit and miss" in selecting feats and allocating points due to being unfamiliar with how all this stuff works. So, yes, this is all really helpful. =)

Alrighty, then I'll just give that Morninglord the remaining few levels in the Fighter class since he's a front lineman. Between him and the Druid I have plenty of Priest spells at my disposal, so there's no harm in diverting focus there.

In previous incarnations that Tiefling has been a Wizard/Rogue combo before, so it would make sense role play wise for her to dabble in magic. Since I haven't played this far into the game before and don't know what lies ahead, some of those early reinforcement spells will probably come in handy. I don't need a lot; just enough to keep her alive during those frustrating ambushes from behind IWD2 seems so fond of.