Reading and alchemy?

[hunne]

So, I got to the scribe and now I´m able to read books...yet I´ve been told in the wiki that my skill determines the time needed to read and understand the content (uhh...what? seems my RL skill on that is weak too^^).

How does this work? Do I have to sit down and keep the book open or is it enough to quick-page through the book? I can read that, no problem, only that I don´t want to read all the twisted texts, but I don´t see how it affects Henry and his skill in any way. How does he "comprehend" the content?

This game is very confusing in certain parts...
alchemy too: one time I end up with one potion, the other time with three - both times did cook it up the same way except for putting two herbs at the same time into the mortar, the first time I did that one by one...
At what point does the stuff acutally boil and when is the right time to turn the hourglass (which runs down very quickly to begin with, hence I don´t get any of the recipes orders done correctly I think)

[Elfie]

On books: Non-skill books increasing reading when you first open them (same as treasure maps). After then you can sell them. Skill books you need press "read"after opening and then get progress by reading. Sitting with open book doesn't increase you reading skill, no.

On alchemy - you gain random 1-3 potions by manual brew all the time. Later you will get autobrew is will produce a fixed amount all the time. Boiling = bubbles appear. Don't be afraid of pulling the bellows repedately during the process, the cauldron won't explode lol

[TensuMakadi]

If you notice when reading a book words are often misspelled as you read more books, and the recipe book at the alchemy page doesn't count, your skill will increase and the jumbled/misspelled words will actually start to fix themselves. I prefer to read a book every night before I go to bed for an hour or two.

You can find these books at the Scribes shop and ussually a skill book or two at the corresponding merchant, so repair skill books at armourer, horsemanship at stabe, ect..

Edit: Do you actually need to "boil" any of the potions? I ask because I have yet to fail at making a potion even though the recipe often says to boil for x turns and I have never actually brought the cauldren to boil.

[hunne]

thx for your answers!

[Nemecard]

anyone else cant get to or find the scribe at Rattay? he just sleeps in his bed in his private quaters all day?

[rasabt]

Originally posted by Nemecard:

anyone else cant get to or find the scribe at Rattay? he just sleeps in his bed in his private quaters all day?

goto Ushitz or whatever it's called

[HoboProBro]

Yep he never leaves his bed, the Bailiff tells you he is sick. But you can just waltz up there and talk to him if you want. He springs right out of his sickbed too. :D

[Novan56]

I feel like that it is too easy to acquire the reading skill, soon as i did the quest with the Rattay scribe i am already being able to read most of the books i've come across since then, (granted i've purchased one other book from a vendor to study for a few hours in game)...I am hoping that there is a deeper gameplay to this "reading" skill, or is this basically it? That from here on i am able to read whatever book i come across and there won't be any book that have jumbled up words? That would be quite disappointing if i am already at the max reading lvl so soon in the game.

[Narcasung]

I'm gonna answer with my own experience within the game.
As said above, books with no stars don't give any experience. I just had to add I found one non-skill book called "book of poems" or something like that that needed studying, so no, not only skill books need studying.
For boiling, 1 pull of the bellows = 1 turn of hourglass. You don't need to turn the hourglass at all, when it says for example "boil for 2 turns" you just need to pull the bellows twice. And after testing it myself, you don't need to wait, you can just pull the bellows directly the number of times needed.