Uhm, actually recalling and learning from personal experience is WIS and not INT.
* Pushes glasses up the bridge of my nose *
Really now, it's this misconception that is really hurting the game. I will now go on a rant about how my interpretation of the stats is correct despite it being fairly ambiguous and confusing.
It was meant to be a spoof on how everyone has different opinions on the difference on what INT and WIS are, as well as a meta-commentary on the difference between INT and WIS (arguing a set of semantics on a webcomic where the joke wouldn't make sense under your rules is a high-INT, low-WIS action, IMO).
Doesn't she cast off WIS? I thought she was a junior priestess that has been given an unspecified promotion? Why give her a headband of INT rather than the wizard character, or trade it for a headband of WIS of equal power?
These items set your stat to 19 if your stat was lower than 19.
Faelys' INT is 20, and Konsi's WIS is 20. The only real use of such an item in our party would be to provide a large boost to a dump-stat, and if you're doing that, you might as well go for the biggest boost possible.
In reality, we wouldn't make regular use of such an item, everyone in the party is rocking three attuned items that they'd prefer to a headband of intellect when adventuring. It's the kind of thing we'd put in the bag of holding and then attune during a downtime day when we needed to do library research.
To be fair to Konsi, a 10 point boost in INT would be pretty psychologically shocking to most characters that aren't Epic Level Wizards, and that's just cause at that point an INT of 28 is normal for those guys.