Just so I don't come off as a total newbie at this...

Is it just a basic gesalt (Gain the highest number of spells, slots, hitpoints and feats possible per level, ex a mage/fighter gets a feat, spell slot, and a number of spells per level, plus 1d12 HP) or is it some kind of variation or other limitation?

By Multiclass I mean the weird class hybrid thing on character creation when you're an elf or other non-human that lets you pick something like fighter/cleric or ranger/dildo*.

*Minsc

In essence, yes. The different classes gain levels at different rates though, and since your XP is split evenly between all your classes, you'll gain levels in them at different times. In your example, if you're leveling as FTR in your FTR/Mage combo, then you'll get to choose where to put a weapon proficiency point (if you gain one at that level). If leveling as mage, you'll gain a spell slot. As for hit points, you don't gain a full hit die when leveling in the class. Rather, (if memory serves) it's the die roll divided by 2, since you have two classes. The die that's rolled depends on the class that's being leveled. When leveling as a FTR, you roll a d10 and divide by 2. When leveling as a mage, you roll a d4 and divide by 2. When the character gets to higher level, you gain only a specific number of HPs and no longer get to roll for them.

Is Multiclass better than normal classes, because I prefer single classes like just a Fighter, Mage, Thief, etc.

Well... That is not an easy question. It depends on what you want to be better about the character. It also depends on the particular multiclass. And of course different people have different oppinions...
If you ask me, a fighter/thief is better than a thief. The thief part gains a lot from the fighter part and loses nothing worth mentioning. You do not need that many skill points for your thieving skills. So the higher level of the single class thief does not matter. The fighter/mage is a beast of it's own. Arguably better in combat than the single class fighter because of all his buffs. But it plays very differently. The thief/mage really loses capabilities on the mage side of the equation. He will get less spell slots because of the lower level. Mage class also has little synergies with the thief. So... I would say the T/M is weaker than the single class mage. The fighter/cleric is a fair trade. Loses some spells, gains some combat skill. The cleric/mage is just a bad cleric and a bad mage in one person...

Simple answer:
In BG1 absolutely no: except for solo'ing, you don't gain enough experience to make it worth it.
In BG2 yes, it can be, but makes much more sense with a smaller party: a large party has every angle covered, and multiclassing is unnecessary.

That depends. Just because someone is multiclassing doesn't mean they're trying to cover multiple roles. For instance, a fighter/mage or cleric/mage is the best tank in the game, much better than either a pure fighter (self-only buffs) or a pure mage (a lot more hp and ability to have a good AC).

Also every character who's not a mage needs to be decent at melee combat, and having fighter levels (or ranger for a cleric) really helps with that.

A fighter/thief is a much better character than a pure thief in BG 2 since you don't need a lot of thief skills and pure thieves suck at fighting. A ranger/cleric can also be better than a pure cleric, both for fighting and for spells (since you get druid spells too), but dual classing is probably better for that.



To the OP: Frankly, once you understand the rules of the game, and know how to get past the difficult early levels, BG 1&2 are easy enough that you can play whatever you want and still win, so just pick what seems the most fun for you without worrying about other things.

Are Rangers the class that are the most proficiante at Ranged Weapons IE bows, crossbows etc.?

No, in D&D rangers are a mix of fighter and druid, that has most of the abilities of a fighter, and some low-level druid spells.
However, they do have access to a specialized class for ranged combat called the archer (which is the only way to make ranged combat actually viable in BG 2 since bows, while OP at low levels, scale very badly at higher levels), but that's only in BG 2 or if you're using BGT.

If you want to be the best archer you can be in vanilla BG 1, you want to make an elven fighter with as many dots in bows as you can, 18 strength for using composite longbows and 19 dex.

In BG 2, as I said pick ranger and choose the archer specialization.

Not in BG1. The most proficient with bows are Elves. That goes for BG1 and BG2, since they get a natural 19 DEX possibility, and a bonus THAC0 for bows. Class has no bearing on ranged weapons in BG1, only BG2 with the Archer (Ranger) class.

Yes, in BG1 too actually. I should know, I recently did a playthrough with a fighter/mage/thief.
Don't underestimate spells like mirror image or blur, which are caster only. They can add a lot to your survivability.
Basically fighter/mages trade a bit of hp for a lot of very helpful self-buffs, it's well worth the trade-off even in BG 1 imo, and in BG 2 it's way OP.

I agree with you (quote: "a fighter/mage or cleric/mage is the best tank in the game") in BG2, but absolutely not in BG1. Mirror image does not have the survivability (number of mirrors) with a multiclassed F/M in BG1 -- you just simply don't have the experience available, unless you use mods/cheats.

Well that's not quite true due to the way levels scale. If you have TotSC, you're capped at around 140k xp IIRC, which means a pure fighter ends up level 8 (125k xp) while a fighter/mage ends up at level 7 for each class (64k xp for lvl 7 fighter, 60k xp for lvl 7 mage).

So you lose 1 level of fighter by being multiclassed, big deal. Gaining all the abilities of a lvl 7 mage in exchange for 1 lvl of fighter is worth it for me, sorry.


And my fighter/mage/thief ended up at levels 6/6/7 (around 40k xp in each class), again a more powerful character imo than a pure lvl 8 fighter. She was a way better tank than the other warriors in my group (Ajantis and Kivan).

What does shared xp have to do with anything? BG has an xp cap of 95k xp, or 135k xp (I think) with TotSC. Whether you're soloing or in a 6-man group, you WILL reach that cap if you do most of the content. If you're soloing you'll just reach much sooner.
And at that cap the level difference between a pure fighter and a fighter/mage is 1. That's it.

Oh, and my fighter/mage/thief was part of a 6-character group for almost her whole playthrough, and she still reached the cap around chapter 5, at levels 6/6/7 respectively.
Seriously, I think you need to refresh your memory about BG, because your statements about xp and multiclasses make no sense at all.

As a rule of thumb, each class of a 2-class multiclass character will run 1 level below a single class character. Each class of a 3-class multiclass character will run 2 levels below a single class character.

However, the experience progression changes for characters at 9-10 level. After that, single class characters will out-pace multiclass characters substantially. That makes multi-class a much better deal at lower levels than higher levels.

64,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 7
Fighter/Thief 6/6
Fighter/Mage/Thief 5/5/6

500,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 10
Fighter/Thief 9/11
Fighter/Mage/Thief 8/9/10

1,000,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 12
Fighter/Thief 10/12
Fighter/Mage/Thief 9/10/11

2,500,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 18
Fighter/Thief 13/15
Fighter/Mage/Thief 10/12/13

4,000,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 24
Fighter/Thief 16/19
Fighter/Mage/Thief 13/13/16

8,000,000 xp comparison:

Fighter 40
Fighter/Thief 24/28
Fighter/Mage/Thief 18/17/22