Is there any reason not to use Muscle Maker (permanent plus to physical skills, permanent minus to mental) on my melee followers?

(Say, Sogg dies instantly if I reduce his INT to 1 . . .)

It would be funny and fun to see how far I could max my melee followers, but if there's a known downside I won't get too attached to the idea (haven't built any Muscle Makers yet).

I can't see there being an issue. if it is a permanent buff/nerf though it should be fine and work like you want it to. I don't think I've ever actually used the Muscle Maker though (where do you find a schematic for it?)

I don't think it will let you go below 1 but it affects all stats which means a decrease in willpower which means your meat shields will pass out easier which is easy to counter with herbal and be more susceptible to spells which is rare anyway.

Its kind of pointless because most meat shields get max dex and str by the end of the game anyway. So you really would only be buffing con and beauty. The characters that tend to have lowish physical stats are the mage and tech followers which means you essentially be giving up their spells/schematics to make them into extra meat shields in a game filled with meat shield followers.

On someone like sogg that doesn't get max con its probably a decent trade off maybe taking off 5 points of mental and adding 5 to physical for the con boost.

Shebear, you get it when you rescue the dwarves at Stonecutter clan.

Cromwest, I didn't know there was a max stats limit. This is my 2nd playthrough and the first one was a mage who only got to ~38. If there's a stats cap, that's not as exciting, too bad.

Im playing through right now with a tech guy who has max therapeutics. It was kind of disappointing for the same reason. I have Magnus, Loghaire, Sebastian and Janya in my group. All the potions stack with each other so you get a bonus of +6 to str, dex and perception and +4 to everything else which is great for me because i skimped on everything but Int.

I figured since Loghaire is a meat shield he would be crazy with the potions but he already gets max str and dex the potions were kind of a waste. However every one else was a tech guy with kind of puny physical stats and it boosted their stats a whole bunch so thereputics is great for turning weak main characters and tech focused followers into combat monsters but it doesnt do much for followers who are already meat sheilds