am I reading this right:

The old record. record.Record.save() is not permitted.

does this mean we can't change records from workflow action scripts?

@David Stillman I suspect whatever you're trying to do through Workflow is the wrong approach. It may also be worth asking in the SuiteFlow channel. oldRecord cannot be altered, correct, this is an instance of the record as it exists in the DB before it is altered in the "current session".