Skill books no effect bug

[Greybeard]

I have discovered that reading a skill book sometimes has no effect when it should increase the appropriate skill.

What I first noticed was that I could buy a skill book from a store and read it for the skill points. Subsequent readings only displayed the text and didn't add any skill points, which seems reasonable. However, it can be confusing, since there's nothing in the user interface to indicate whether a particular skill book has been read or not; I assume there's a flag for each individual book that is never displayed.

I sold the book back to the store. Later, I bought a book from the store and read it and it had no effect. At first I assumed I had bought the same book I'd bought and read earlier by mistake. Even if that was the case, there should be some way to tell if a particular book has been read and will therefore have no effect when read again.

However, even later, I found a skill book in a chest in my travels and it also had no effect. There's no way the book I'd bought from the store, read, and sold back to the store could have gotten into a closed chest in an entirely different location.

[King_ov_Death]

You can only read each book once. It doesn't matter where you got it from, if you've already read it then it has no effect on you.

[Greybeard]

Are you suggesting that after I sold a skill book to a shop, the shop keeper went out into the forest and planted it in a chest for me to find? That seems unreasonably underhanded.

It is also a bug that there's no way in the game's user interface to distinguish a skill book I've read from one I haven't. I resorted to saving the game just before buying a book and reloading if it didn't work, since that didn't seem like cheating to get around the fact that I couldn't tell if the book I was about to buy was one I'd sold back to the shop or a newly added one. This is even worse when there are multiple copies of the same title.

[CrazyBernie]

To be even more specific, not only do subsequent readings have no effect, but subsequent copies will yield no additional skill points. You can have 30 copies of the Sword Skill book, and you will get either the skill for free (if you don't yet have it), or a one time point bonus.

[Unclever title]

That's a one time 2 point bonus, to be unnecessarily specific, as you probably already knew that.

[Greybeard]

OK, that is more consistent if each title (not copy) yields the enhancement once. I had thought that I had gotten the enhancement twice from some title, but I guess I was mistaken.

[IJBall]

OK, that is more consistent if each title (not copy) yields the enhancement once. I had thought that I had gotten the enhancement twice from some title, but I guess I was mistaken.

The other important thing to realize about Skill Books is that they only raise your particular Skill by 2 levels if you've already put some points into that Skill.

But if you have no points in a Skill, and you read the Skill Book, it will only give you Level 1 in that particular Skill...

[Kreador Freeaxe]

OK, that is more consistent if each title (not copy) yields the enhancement once. I had thought that I had gotten the enhancement twice from some title, but I guess I was mistaken.

The other important thing to realize about Skill Books is that they only raise your particular Skill by 2 levels if you've already put some points into that Skill.

But if you have no points in a Skill, and you read the Skill Book, it will only give you Level 1 in that particular Skill...

But, since level 1 in a skill costs 3 points at level up, the skill book is worth it to get the skill if there are no trainers to teach it to you (money is the most easily gained of the commodities).

[King_ov_Death]

And then you can sell the book without losing what you learned. I often do this when I find a book I didn't read for sale: I buy it, then I read it and finally I sell it back. So, you've got a brand new skill (or two more skill points) for just a little bit gold!

[Dragonlady]

But, to add to the above, don't read a book you don't have a skill in until you have discovered there is no trainer for. Find a trainer, buy 5 levels, THEN read the book for 2 more skill levels. If you read it before you have the max trainable skills the trainer will not train you if your at 5th or higher level. There are some skill that have no trainer and only way to get them is when you create a character or read a book and then put points into it as you go up levels. Only way to know which skills aren't trained is to play the game or hunt for cheats in the forums.