am now a level 5 mage but woulkd be nice if he didnt run into battle with the rest . if there are range weapons where can you get them?

One NPC whom you may find later uses crossbows. Apart from that, there are no ranged weapons.

The Nameless one is restricted to defending himself by magic, or by fighting at close quarters. But combat isn't that important in the game.

if not why are there slots for missle weapons on the inventory page?
he has a quiver.

Probably for programming reasons - they created one inventory page for all characters, and since one of them needed slots for missile weapons, everybody got the slots.

Just so you're aware... cause it's not at all intuitive...

When you're a mage, you apparently keep the THACO and number of attacks you had as a fighter, so other than being limited to a smaller range of weapons, your TNO as a mage doesn't really deal much less damage than your TNO in fighter form.

And even more surprisingly - it is -much- easier to improve your AC as a mage than as a fighter. Seriously, right around the time I'm meeting Pharod, my fighter TNO is lucky to get his AC down to 7, while as a mage he has little problems getting it to 0 or even better. This is because the mage can wear AC bracers, those +2 AC earrings, the same AC rings you can wear as a fighter, and other things while, at least in the early game, the only AC TNO can wear as a fighter are tattoos and rings, and they really don't give much, and you have to actually pay a bunch of gold for the tattoos. I don't think that really changes in the late game either - the mage will still always be able to get better AC, someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

So, yeah, at any given moment your character is actually better to toss into the thick of combat in mage form than in fighter form. The only reason to operate in fighter form that I can see is if you're really really addicted to axes/hammers for some reason, and to gain levels in it.

In my games, I take my character up to level 12 as a fighter (or maybe 13, I'll have to see if he gets an extra attack per round bonus in PS:T at 13 like fighters do in BG2), getting both specializations at 7 and 12 as a fighter so he'll be able to put in 5 proficiency points into daggers, then change to mage and never switch back. That way, -as- a mage, he's got a very respectable THACO of 6 or 7, sufficient for most battles, plus grand mastery in daggers, and the maximum possible attacks per round, and all the self-buffs that a mage can do. Then equip him with solid mage-only AC bracers and those earrings and Celestial Fire (assuming you're Lawful Good, which I pretty much always am). At no point do you have to deal with the obnoxious normal dual-class interim period where your fighter skills are inactive and you're trying to level as a level 5 mage against level 10 mobs. Kensai-mages, eat your heart out.

Qwinn

Would just like to point out that while TNO as fighter have little in way of armor, he doesn't need it. As a mage he does as getting hit = disrupting spells in infinity.

Simply put, TNO as a fighter is much better of getting a high constitution, and thus regenerate. A 25 constitution with the tatoo that increases regeneration, and even the greater glabrezu can't harm you fast enough anylonger.