[andrewas]

1) For saves, your trying to roll above your save accounting for any penalties or bonus the spell in question gives, so you want saves to be low.

For THACO your trying to roll above your THACO minus your opponents AC. You want both numbers to be low.

For the other stats - Lore, the primary 6, resistance, higher is better.

2)the general notation is NdM , where N is the number of dice and M is the number of sides. so 1d20 is 1 20-sided die, 3d6+4 is 3 6-sided dice + 4.

3)You can make the midgame a bit easier by doing a lot of quests early on, but the late game will be much the same and there is a disadvantage to doing too much before leaving to rescue Imoen.

4) You only get prof points at certain levels - fighters every 3 levels, clerics/thieves every 4 and mages every 6.

5) Y'know, I damn near Died when I saw what was for sale in Athkatla. +2 weaponry readily available. +3 and +4 if you know where to look. After BG1 where to get a +3 sword you have to go through 4 levels of the most devious dungeon ever constructed, the equipment in BG2 is exceedingly generous.

The equipment you have is almost certainly adequate for this point in the game, and you will find better as you go on. If you seriously lack something, the adventurers mart has some very nice gear and theres some great stuff to be found just be exploring. Money can be hard to come by early on, but later on you will have plenty.