If you sell your stat raising tomes you find (there are 12 total throughout the game) to Fat Larry, they never disappear, because he is an outdoors vendor. So after selling them, you can keep buying them and using them, until they have nothing else to teach you! Free stats/points all around! Also, certain NPCs provide you a stat increase, sometimes under special circumstances, others not... Combining these methods to raise stats you can build a powerful character, without fear of running out of precious and hard-earned, experience points!

Here, is the list of all tomes and some details on them:
http://vtmb.wikia.com/wiki/Skill_Books

Here, is the list of "mentor" NPCs:
http://vtmb.wikia.com/wiki/Teachers

And here is someone's detailed guide, on efficient XP farming, harvesting and skill investment:
https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/914819-vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines/faqs/47335

Have fun!

Althought I appreciate the hints, I would call selling them and using it to muliply 'em is kinda of cheating. It wasn't supposed to be like that. :D
Still - to know a bit about teachers and opportunities for leveling skills for free sure is nice.

It was supposed to be like that. Exactly like how Trip's inventory respawns the skill books on computers and firearms anew, each and every time you talk to him again.

Outdoor vendor simply keeps his inventory "memorized" and he never runs out of whatever it is you sold there; which also works as intended...

Well... I'm not judging. :D

But... didn't they fix this in latest unofficial patches? At least I can't remember Trip respawning his books for me... In... 9.4 I think?

Ouch. Thanks for the warning. I still haven't got my dead ass over to downtown... Maybe i will have to stick with the vanilla version of gog folder's exe...

You don't like it that much? :D

Obviously. Generally in games, but specifically in RPGs, i want ALL the cheese and exploitation i can get! I want my character to REEK of overpowerness and imbalance, but without editors or third party cheats.

Also, especially for Bloodlines, that i own the retail version too, the vanilla 1.0 one, i used the "Create Character" trick (going forth and back from clan to character sheet and vice versa), so as to get the starting points multiple times and create a powerhouse from start. This was corrected in 1.2, though...

I can understand that. I usually go for the same opmipotent godlike character, althought true, more or less, 'legal' ways, without exploting, for example, the game code. But this not make said character less OP than it's intended. :D

Well, anyone who has played the game a few times can tell you the following facts:

- The early guns are useless, no matter what your character build is. This shifts drastically in the third act of the game where guns suddenly start doing insane damage and can make the end-game a breeze. Brawling remains consistently modestly useful the entire game, but by the midpoint you will finally start getting your hands on decent melee weapons and should probably leave brawling behind, depending on clan bonuses and disciplines. In general, the first act of the game it is best to brawl, the middle act is for melee and in the third act guns are ridiculously good.

For combat heavy characters you will probably want to progress through all three weapon categories in that order.

- The three social skills have different uses. The most commonly used one is Persuasion, followed by Seduction. Intimidation is used less frequently and it doesn't always produce the same positive outcomes of the other two categories. You will do well only focusing on Persuasion, but Seduction and Intimidation can be a lot of fun, especially if you're roleplaying. Skipping all three means you're missing out on a lot of the game's flavour. After all, you don't gain XP from combat, you only do so by finishing quests or objectives.

Fair warning: The third act of the game is very combat heavy, and in fact the social skills are entirely useless as far as I can remember. A social player will want to have at least one good combat skill and some means of increasing survivability in combat.

- Hacking is generally useful both for getting around and reading amusing emails. Lockpicking is more of a convenience but not essential to getting the most out of the main story, you can temporarily "blood buff" your dexterity up to deal with many locks.

- Investigation and Haggle are completely optional, and arguably nothing you need to invest skill points into. You will have an easier time finding small items scattered across the world with Investigation, and Haggle means you make a little more money from trading those items, but like 99% of all cRPGs out there money isn't all that useful in this game. I personally like both skills because I enjoy raking in the cash in any game I play, something I just can't seem to do in real life. It is not an optimal choice in the game however as you have few meaningful or fun things to spend them on. I just like to imagine the weight of my character's wallet.

- The only way to screw up your character is by completely ignoring anything that has to do with combat. Parts of the game will become frustrating if you haven't built up your ability to take damage, especially when you are fighting supernatural enemies that deal special forms of damage. Any build can deal with human enemies shooting, stabbing and punching you, which can make you too comfortable taking your "social" character into combat and get torn apart once you hit a snag having to fight other vampires and mythological beasts. Ventrue and Gangrel characters have the Fortitude discipline which is very helpful in these fights. Other characters may want to invest in ways to kill faster and win every fight before taking too much damage. In the end-game, guns can be enough to make every fight super easy, so long as you're a modestly skilled FPS player.

For those who struggle with playing First person games (and I do), I think it's worth flagging up that you can play VTMB in Third person (Z key).

However, when it comes to using guns, First person is crucial due to how the aiming works. It's very difficult to achieve a decent shot in Third person. The good news is, that even I find the sections where shooting comes into play manageable. It's possible to sneak and snipe a lot of the time. I do this by using Third person to sneak, then switch to First for the shot.

Alternatively, you can choose to focus exclusively on melee and still complete the game. I did this the first time through.

One skill which I think comes into it's own in this game is sneaking.

For the unofficial 9.5 basic patch version that gog installation provides, you can do 2 nice little tricks. The one is exactly what i described above and i have to point out the report was wrong, this trick works perfectly even in the patch of wesp. Vendors have this behavior of duplicating tomes because this is exactly as how they are intended to behave! I tried it with Trip and worked normally without fail! Just remember to sell the tome, then buy and use, then do the same; merchant is going to have the tome available for purchase AGAIN, provided that you didn't exit the shop, in which case it disappears forever. So you rebuy and relearn enough times, so it won't be usable afterwards; then it is perfectly fine to be lost. Unless you sell it to an outdoors vendor, like FAT LARRY, in which case it never disappears (because you cannot "exit" his shop). Do this to conserve experience, because it isn't really abundant.

The other trick is... You enable clan histories, by tampering with the CFG file. The one with the 4 lines. One is about intro cutscene to be able to become skip-able and is at 0 value, you can set it to 1. The second is exactly that, about histories, turning 0 into 1 works, too. Don't touch the other 2 lines... When you return into the game again, the version that has the patch obviously (9.5 basic), you can pick a history. But that is not all... By picking a history and going back and forth from character sheet to choosing clan/sex/history, by clicking on the history menu and on your chosen history again, then going back to character sheet, stats were saved and you get new ones to allocate... Which translates to adding as many points as you want, creating a powerhouse, from the very beginning of the game! Jack though "insults" you upon first dialogue. Not really needed, game is easy enough as is, but for a second/third playthrough, or for trying out ALL different gameplay options, it would be interesting for a flash-quick go-through...

It doesn't matter - after a certain point, reading them doesn't make an improvement. Some only work if below, say, skill level three so if you are at four, it will not help you.

So, if you are at skill level 1, this tome will improve you to 2 then you can sell it, buy it back, and use it to get to level 3 but after that, it won't be readable.