Questions Regarding Monk (Some spoilers)

amuletofyendor

Forgive me for being such a noob, but I have just started the game

1. Does Hardiness stack?
2. Someone told me that monks can use wand of cloudkill and amulet of power, yet my monk cannot. Can they really be equipped?
3. How do monks deal with protection from magical weapons, short of equipping a regular weapon? How do they deal with mages in general?
4. Can protection from normal weapons and protection from magical weapons be active at the same time?
5. Does magic resistance affect all spells? How does it work?
6. What is the difference between a round and a turn?
7. What is the difference between Paws of the Cheetah and speed boots?
8. On the wiki, it says monks cannot be hasted or slowed. However, when I equip Paws of the Cheetah, I am hasted. Is this a bug?
9. I activated Greater Whirlwind on my monk, and for some reason, I was suddenly improved hasted, killing Firkraag impossibly quickly. Bug?
10. Is it better for monks to pick up greater whirlwind or critical strike?
11. This ones not really a question, but an observation I'd like to verify. For me, it seems that playing monks solo is much easier than playing with a monk in a party. Magic resistance plus high level abilities really wreck everything. Do most people feel like this?

I apologize if the answers to some of these questions can be found online. I have looked online for the answers to most of these questions, but the problem is that some of the answers are vague, requiring clarification. Thanks in advance for answering.

Lord_Tansheron

1. With each other? Shouldn't. It does stack with other similar effects though afaik.
2. Don't know about that, read the item's description, it should tell you who can use it.
3. You said it, equip a regular weapon. Only way, really.
4. Yes. Although you cannot cast the actual spell when the respective other is up, you can get the immunity from another source (an equipped item for example)
5. It affects most spells, but not all. X% magic resistance = X% chance for a hostile spell hitting this to not do anything. As a general rule, dispel spells ignore MR, as do some high-level damage spells (Dragon's Breath, Comet, Firestorm for example)
6. 1 round = 6 seconds. 1 turn = 10 rounds = 60 seconds
7. Just the name. In BG1 items tend to be labeled with their unique name, in BG2 they tend to be labeled by their descriptive name. E.g. "Army Scythe" in BG1 = "Light Crossbow of Speed+1" in BG2; it's the exact same item, and you can see the unique name if you read the description.
8. The boots do not haste a character per se, they only increase movement rate. Haste also gives +1 APR, which the boots DO NOT give. They do use the same icon though, so that is a bit confusing to be sure.
9. What do you mean? GWW sets your APR to 10, the maximum; Improved Haste can do that, too, if you have 5 base APR. IH doesn't let you attack any faster than GWW.
10. It depends, both have their uses. Against an enemy you have trouble hitting, CS may result in more hits as critical strikes always hit, regardless of enemy AC. Of course, if you are already hitting the enemy fairly well the extra APR from GWW may be better instead.
11. A matter of taste mostly, objectively speaking your performance in a (reasonable) party should be better than with a solo Monk.

amuletofyendor

Thank you so much! Clarifies quite a few things for me. About Firkraag, guess that was just my normal performance with Greater Whirlwind! Guess that's good.
Again, thanks a lot.