How do tech manuals work?

[Xander77]

Never bothered with them before. Apparently they increase your proficiency in a certain technlogical discipline by an amount equal to your INT per manual. So, 5 manuals to get 100 if you're using an INT potion? Do they only apply to being proficient enough to craft found schematics? Because I've increased my proficiency to 50, and didn't actually "earn" a single schematic.

[Muro]

Originally posted by Xander77:

Apparently they increase your proficiency in a certain technlogical discipline by an amount equal to your INT per manual.

Correct. Note that the bonus is only temporary and applied as long as you have the (considerably heavy) manuals in your inventory. As such, they're not very practical to carry around everywhere for keeping a high proficiency for items you create regularly, but if it's something you create just once or every once in a longer while, you might store your manuals at a remote place and return to it whenever you want to craft the item.

Originally posted by Xander77:

So, 5 manuals to get 100 if you're using an INT potion?

Essense of intelect gives you a temporary +10 to INT, so that's true if your intelligence is 10 or higher.

One exception would be if you use a background with forced dumb dialogue (like Idiot Savant of Frankenstein Monster), as the way the game handles it, a tech manual "think" you have Int = 1 no matter your actual stats. As such, one manual will only give +1 proficiency for a character with such a background, rendering them more or less useless.

Originally posted by Xander77:

Do they only apply to being proficient enough to craft found schematics?

As a rule of thumb, yes. You won't unlock the learned schematics by boosting your proficiency with manuals.

[Xander77]

Doesn't seem to work.

Edit - oh, you generally need expertise in TWO different things to create stuff from schematics. Welp.