Can Monks Use Mage Scrolls?

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Something unusual I noticed in my last playthrough with the monk. I'm noticing some of the scrolls I pick up are don't have the red background - indicating that they are unusable by my character. Now that I noticed it, I'm going to start looking at all mage scrolls. The one that I found so far is the stone to flesh scroll - the blue one that mages can scribe, not the green ones that anyone with an intelligence of 10 or better can use.

I also had not previously realized that the monk gets some limited thief abilities - hide in shadows, move silently, and find traps. Granted, he only gets 10 more points per level, so it takes forever to get to the point where you can rely on them, but still.

I also had not realized that the monk requires 225K per level up, not 250K like fighters, which also is a big help. Since monks keep getting better with each level up - unlike fighters that basically stop improving beyond 3 more hp/level after 20 - this can't really be over-stated. Especially the enhanced movement. My monk is moving nearly as fast as a character with boots of speed.

The one thing that's a bit of a downer is his special abilities of stunning blow and quivering palm - it seems like nearly every time I use it they make their saving throw. The stunning blow was good early on - I guess early game they have poor saving throws, and they basically need to make three consecutively to avoid the affects - but the higher level characters make the save.

 

Monks only improve slightly after level 20 -- although they hit it faster than fighters. A real advantage is the ability to gain more HLA's due to faster leveling.

Being a sub-class of priest I've heard of monks being able to use divine scrolls (and perhaps arcane scrolls where there is a divine version of the spell). I don't believe that ability was part of the original monk and may be from a mod such as 'Sword and Fist.'

 

Come to think of it, he was able to use a "Cure Serious Wounds" scroll he found earlier too. Hmmm... Both scrolls were "blue" scrolls. I wonder if it's something like that type of classification.

EDIT: Oh, and my favorite part of the monk is definitely the 3% magic resistance per level. I had misinterpreted the way it was written - I thought that 3% at level 14 meant I got 3% at that point, and another 3% per level thereafter - which alone wouldn't be bad. I had not realized that it counted all the levels up to that point, so at level 14 you were already at 42%. Add in the 10% bonus you get for the hell trials, and you'll be completely immune to magic at level 30.

I guess time stop would still affect you, not that it would do the caster any good, as any spells cast at you during that time would do... nothing. It may also be the easiest means of dealing with the demi-lich, which I did not do before starting Chapter 4. If I wait until fairly late in SoA, I could actually go up against him with no protections at all, and have a reasonable chance of defeating him. Not that I'll be level 30 at that point, but I could conceivably be level 25, and with a magic trinket or two, I can be upwards of 90% resistant.

 

Unfortunately magic resistance tops out at 78% for a monk -- which is still significant and can be stacked with other items....

Amulet of Magic Resistance -- 5%
Kaligan's Amulet of Magic Resistance -- 10%
Ring of Gaxx -- 10%

As you said you can also gain 10% in the Hell Trials and 5% from the Machine of Lum the Mad.

 

Monks can use priest scrolls. There are, I believe also some other scrolls that monks and clerics can use. I don't know which, though. In BGTutu, due to either a fixpack or something else, my monk could actually use wands. Made soloing him a lot easier with the use of wands of paralyzing and wands of monster summoning. In SoA it didn't work, however, and I'm pretty sure that's the way it should be.

As T2B says, monks cap out at 78% MR. Still, I managed to get mine at 118% by the end of SoA. Going up against Kangaxx, the MR doesn't help you at all, though. Imprisonment ignores MR.

Stunning blow is nice in BGTutu, but in SoA it's not so great. Quivering palm requires a bit of luck, so I usually don't bother with it.

And yes, monks level up on the same table as the clerics do.

 

Stunning Blow's effect is quite powerful though and ignores magical resistance and most protections, I'm not sure if it goes through Protection from Magical Weapons. Getting held/paralyzed at high levels is a death sentence - at low-mid levels at least random numbers could ultimately favor you via a combination of bad rolls and sheer incompetence on the part of your attackers.

A handful of spells have effects that ignore magical resistance. I was pretty sure Imprisonment was one of them (confirmed by above).

I'm surprised you haven't mentioned how much damage monks do with their fists especially once you reach the Underdark areas. They hit harder than even two-handed weapons users, and they do blunt type damage.

 

Well, 78% is good enough. You get another 10% during the hell trials, and that combined with Ring of Gaxx would get you to 98%, which, while not perfect, is plenty good enough to be relied upon. I can live with it not going off once in 50 times, and seeing as how a lot of spell affects can be negated with a saving throw, 98% is plenty.

Well drat that. I'm back to Spell Immunity: Abjuration

I felt that went without saying - they roll d20 for damage - there's no weapon in the game that rolls more than a d12.

 

Yep, crazy damage and they get it at just the right chapter. One of the highlights of being a monk imo is when you're exploring the Underdark and any hostile being you encounter gets blown to chunks.

 

NOt exactly sure why but they can use certain mage scrolls. For instance I recall being able to use the vocalize scroll though for the life of me I could not figure out why a monk would.

 

Ironically, I was just visiting the site to find out if anybody knew why my monk is able to cast the 7th level mage spell "Summon Nishru" from scroll. It appears I'm not the only one finding out my monk is a little better off than I initially thought.