does anyone know how these work?

my assumption (from a guide) is that you get the fighter number of stars on the fighter levelups only (otherwise i guess you'd get too many), so with the TOB xcap:

fighterlvl-stars
1-4
3-5
6-6
9-7
12-8
15-9
18-10

is that right? :S

You are 100% correct. Using the ToB XP cap, the F/M/T will be of levels 18/17/22, and a level 18 fighter does indeed have 10 weapon proficiencies.

[ 05-15-2003, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: Jim ]

hmm, i think i will gor for 2-handed weapons then - too many choices otherwise ;)

Grrrrr! That's unjust! Consider how many stars would Jim's F/M/T had if he were a pure fighter. A multiclass should get stars regularly from each class. Well, that's a lot of stars but, on the other hand, the multiclass levels up much slower than a single class.
One more reason not to play a multiclass :(

Um, he'd get exactly the same number at the same level... on top of which, don't you think its rather nice to be able to cast spells at people, dissapear into shadows and backstab your opponents, rather than hack n' slash mastery?

I don't think so. Reasons:

1. The multiclass is "penalized" by very slow advancing. Good, you can cast spells, attack with a weapon, hide in shadows, and backstab. But at which level? Your level in each class is low so that your spellcasting is of low efficiency and you cannot cast high level spells, your THAC0 isn't something to write home about, your chance to hide in shadows isn't terrific, and your backstab modifier isn't super, too.
2. Let us compare with a dual class. A dual class is a "serialized" multiclass in some sense. The only differences between a multiclass and a dual class are:
- a dual class cannot benefit from both his classes immediately, and
- a dual class will not advance in his old class.
On the other hand, a dual class gets all his stars. How come?

Well, it's a decision of the game authors and we cannot change it. We can only comment. My comment is: It's unjust! The stars are precious and the multiclass is paying a too high price for being a multiclass. A multiclass should behave like two (or three) characters glued together, that means, a multiclass should gain his benefits from all his classes.

So you're saying that a MC character should get a weapon proficiency evey 3 character levels?

The maxed F/M/T has a total of 18+17+22 = 57 character levels, given 4 proficiencies upon character creation (not sure how many a FMT starts with so this is speculation), this would give the character a total of (57/3)+4=23 profiencies compared to a level 40 fighter's 17. Hmmm. Even if he doesn't start with 4 proficiencies and instead starts with 2, this is still 21 vs 17. I don't think under any circumstances that a more versitile MC character should end up with more weapon proficiencies that a level 40 pure classed warrior. I think the benefits of a MC character far outweigh the disadvantage of slowly levelling up.

Not exactly, Jim. The F/M/T in your example should get 18/3 + 17/6 + 22/4 = 13 stars plus the starting boost. Even if the starting boost were 3 stars (it should be lower because the multiclass will collect benefits faster at low levels than a single class), we would have 16 stars only.
I do not have progression tables at hand now. How many stars gets a single class fighter at XP corresponding to a 18/17/22 level F/M/T?