Manuals/Tomes and inherent bonuses to ability scores
 

I'm trying to edit some character portfolios to show that the characters have read a magical Manual (Gainful Exercise, Quickness of Action, Bodily Health) or Tome (Clear Thought, Understanding, Leadership and Influence). The magical items in question give an inherent bonus to one particular ability score.

How do I do this, short of forcing through the change under the Personal/Permanent Adjustment tab? If I do it that way, there isn't even a drop-down menu asking me what type of bonus it is (beyond which ability score is affected).

Ideally there should be something added to the magical item itself, to show that the character has used it.

I also would like to see this but I know it will never happen. Lone Wolf is devoting most of their resources to their online HL.

If you use the Community Pack adjustments, there's an "Ability Score (Perm), Type" one that allows you to assign a type to the boost if you want; there's also a "Custom Name: Item" one that will let you rename the Manual to put "Used" in the name.

The easiest way to do this is go to the Personal tab and go to add permant adjustment and go to attributes ability score permant select it once per ability score you want to raise. and you select the attribute you want to raise and how much and it also gives you an area to put how you got the score.

Yes, that's what I've done. I don't see why the OP thinks this is not the correct approach?

I think the OP is wanting the item itself to have the ability to add the bonus and then list it as used. I also would like the feature but I just use the adjustment tab for it. This feature has been asked for a few times in the past. If it has not already been added I doubt it will ever happen at this point.

But once you've read the book then you can dispose of the book, in which case it won't be in your inventory; so won't be available to apply its bonus to your stats.

Dwayne got it right.

For group accounting purposes, it's an advantage to be able to see if a party member has both received and used a manual/tome as they are expensive chunks of party treasure.

This might need to be just a note in a Journal entry, in that case.

For group tracking, I have suggested to LWD in the past that a "Group" or "Adventuring Party" type of Hero (added to choosing a PC/NPC/Army/Kingdom) might be a useful thing. Even if such a type is not created, you can use a Non-Player Character entry to track group information like who got what treasure and so on.

Because the book can be removed from your character once used, we don't want to put the activation on the book itself. I'd add "Ability Score (Permanent)" on the Permanent Adjustments table on the Personal tab, and in the "(source)" box, fill in "Manual of Gainful Exercise + 1". Then, if all the party members are using the same record keeping, you can flip to the Personal tab on each to see who could benefit from a new manual you're getting.