OK, so I am SURE I am missing something obvious, but I can't find it, so I decided to turn to the all powerful internet:

In the Career Path section of the RT book, each path has a listed number of "Starting Skills" and "Starting Talents." These are a simple list; no 'and's or 'or's present. Then in the "Rank 1" section, where it lists the costs of Skills and Talents at that rank, all of the skills/talents from the "Starting Skills"/"Starting Talents" sections are listed. Why would I ever buy a skill that I automatically get?

I assume that there is a rule that after picking a career path one should pick X number of options from the "Starting" lists and the XP costs are there to reflect the ability to purchase others. But for the life of me I can't actually find that rule in the character creation segment.

I apologize in advance if this was already covered. Thanks!

Starting skills are repeated in the first rank since there is the possibility that your character might be made along non-standard lines or have a custom starting package that replaces some or all of his or her starting skills and talents. Since some of the latter skills and talents in a career may have those same starting skills and talents and prereq's, they have been included in the first rank with their cost so that, no matter what kind of custom character you're making, all skills and talents for your characters career will be available to your character.

I don't know if this rule is in RT as living in the UK makes it imposible for me to have a copy or even seen a copy of RT but there is a overlooked rule in DH so i'm asuming its in RT as well.

Its called Skill Mastery. If you already have a skill or talent and you buy the same skill or talent again you get skill mastery. For every level of skill mastery (there are two) you get a plus 10 to evey role using that skill or talent. If this rule is in RT then having starting skills and talents available for urchase quickly allowes your charecter to become proficient and skilled. This is very usfull for weapon proficiencies.

Just what i think, if the system is the same as DH that would be my guess as to why

Talex said:

I could be wrong, but I think in Dark Heresy you could only get a Skill Mastery of +10% / +20% if your Career Path is listed in one of the Ranks as "Skill X +10%". As I said, I could be wrong.

But I definitely know that what you said applied in WFRP, and often you would have starting characters with +10% in a skill that comes automatically for their race (such as Knowledge or a language etc.)

Interesting. There are, at later ranks, "Skill +10" and "Skill +20" options. Is that the same thing?

Also, that wouldn't explain the talents.

YogScott said:

That's because that's not the reason. Barring house rules, you don't get a +10 in a skill if you by the basic training for it twice.

The reason the starting skills and talents are included in the first rank for Rogue Trader characters is the same as it is for Dark Heresy characters, in case something comes along and a character is built without those skills and talents, they will still be able to purchase them and and advancement chains for that character will not be broken.

I wish the authors would have taken this opportunity to include the reason for putting the starting skills in the first rank table seeing as how this is in the top 10 most frequently asked questions on the DH boards...

Graver said:

I agree, I wish they would have clarified as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, but I thought in DH in the errata they indicated that some of the choices were "or" choices... I.E. take this skill OR that skill at start, and you can buy the other through XP.

I understand your confusion i wasnt sure how it worked or why you would be able to buy a skill you aleady have, but your answers are on page 230 of Rogue trader.

if you have a basic skill you test at half characteristic

if your are trained in it you test at full characteristic

so you must have the skill twice to test it at your characteristic, hence the ability to purchase said skill at level 1 even though you may already have it due to the character creation process.

Graver said:

Graver said:

I beg to differ, quoting from the dark heresy core rulebook ' Each time you acquire a skill a second or subsequent time, you gain skill mastery with it. Skill mastery adds a +10 bonus to all skill tests made with that skill...'

Example

Mordechai has the interrogation skill. At a later date his Arbitrator gives him the oportunity to acquire the skill again...

YogScott said:

The either or part of skill and talent selection was just one of the reasons to list such skills and talents in the beginning ranks. However, it became apparent that certain optional back-ground packages could alter your characters starting skills as well and sometimes it's useful to know how much those starting skills cost xp wise. So, the designers opted to replicate every beginning talent and skill in the first rank of it's career for the sake of completeness.

Just remember, you can only ever get a skill or talent ONCE. Once you have it, no matter how you got it whether as a beginning skill, as an elite advance, or purchasing it from your rank tables, you can't buy it again unless it explicitly states that you can. To get a +10 or +20 skill mastery in a skill, you must buy the skill when it's listed at a +10 or +20 (though to get the +20 one, you must buy the +10 version first and to get the +10 version, you have to buy the base skill first if you don't already have it.

@ Talex, wile the core DH book dose seem to say that, it is incorrect and is just another case of No Editor for the DH Core Book. The paragraph you are referring on pg 96 was poorly written and has been corrected in the DH errata. To get a skill mastery of +10 in Security, you must by Security +10, not Security or Security +20.

The way in which the paragraph is originally phrased, it becomes possible for a character to purchase skill mastery in a skill far cheaper then it should in some cases (some kills have a higher cost for the +20 mastery level ten for the base skill for instance) or for a rank 2 character to gain mastery in a skill tat they shouldn't be able to until a much higher rank.

You would only gain the skill master if the career rank listed the "Skill +10". They have the starting skills listed for completeness. Like it was mentioned before it is in case you have different starting skills for other reasons

heh, my bad but atleast you can see where i got my ideas from

This rule just clicked for me last night on a second read through. All the skills you aquire from your origin path and your starting career path are considered Basic untrained skills and you roll them with only half your characteristic value. You must train with them (hence the second mention of them in the ranks) to be able to use your full characteristic's value.

That is why on the character sheet it list basic, trained, +10% and +20%. Any character can use basic skills, and your career path and origin selections broaden your chose of basic skills (roll using half char. value). By choosing them again off the rank advancement sheet, you may make them trained and use your full char. value. By taking the same skill advance when allowed at higher ranks, you gain first a +10%, and then finally a +20% to your checks.

When I created a character, I checked all the skills considered Basic skills from the list of skills in the book on my character sheet, and then added the skills gotten through my origin path and career path (career path is part of the origin path really) to my list of basic skills. All those skills (about 20 anyone can use and about 10 added from my origin path/career path) my character can now use at 1/2 my characteristic before buying any advances.

I dont have my book in front of me, but there is a section on skill mastery. However, it points out that if you are given the same skill twice, you get +10%. I.e., you get the skill from you home world and from your starting profession.

The skills are listed in the Rank one only for completness sake. If you get Blather as a starting skill, you can't buy 'Blather' again at rank one for 100 xp and get a +10%. You will have to wait until Rank 2/3 to get the +10% version.

Yeah, I agree, a bit confusing. It could use a clarification.

So then to amend my statement above, most skills you gain are at basic level from your origin path (unless stated otherwise) and those you get from your career path starting skills list are considered trained, and as drgabe said, if you gain a skill twice while creating it, you gain skill mastery ( +10%).

I believe the completeness is correct but also the reason they did as such is in case of "multiclassing" in case you become a psyker somehow outside of character creation you then buy the skills sicne you wont get the starting package. Although there are no actual multiclassing rules as of yet and nor would I ever allow it in my game. Just assumed that was kind of a opportunity they were making. Now if they knew you would get it and it wasnt a either or, they oculd have put a dash for cost but i digress. Think now you as a DM hav an idea on making your own custom npcs that dont ahve starting packages either *shrug*

So tell me if I got this correct, as I was rolling up characters last night.

According to page 24 a noble born origin character gets High Gothic as a untrained basic language skill (since all language skills are advanced, normally).

Now a Rogue Trader has language High Gothic as a starting skill. Does this mean he now gets either a 'trained' level or a +10% level?

Another question, You generate starting wounds during your home world origin phase, but some of the later choices could lower your toughness bonus. If toughness is lowered in the following origin choices, does it change your starting wounds? I'm of the mind that it doesn't affect starting wounds as no mention was made to change them, and that wounds were calculated at the home world phase.

If a character with an untrained basic skill gains that skill from another source, it becomes trained. If you have a trained skill and gain that same skill again from another source, you gain Skill Mastery (meaning a +10).

Starting Wounds are generated during the Home World Phase and are not changed thereafter except when specifically noted (i.e., the Endurance Motivation).

dragonmarkeddm said:

This is essentially correct. To clarify:

1) As to why all skills/talents from starting packages are included on the Rank 1 list:

As Graver discussed above the starting package skills/talents are listed w/ cost on the rank 1 chart in RT because when the Inquisitor's Handbook came out for Dark Heresy allowing homeworlds and background packages these sometimes changed the starting skill packages in ways that removed as well as added skills. As a result a character made in such a way would be crippled later when trying to get skills/talents for which the dropped skills/talents were prerequisites. As a result DH had to be errata'd to add those costs to the Rank 1 lists to fix the problem.

FFG didn't want to make the same mistake with RT so they made the lists complete to begin with.

2) Trained skills vs. Basic skills

Skills in the starting package are at trained. Skills bought with XP are at trained when bought. You do not have to buy basic skills separately.

However, while some skills are basic for everyone, others are only basic skills for individuals with a certain homeworld type, background package or origin path. So instead of the unwieldy basics over here/advanced over here DH approach, in RT they just added another check column to the sheet to help keep up with the basic skills in a simpler manner. Its a character sheet organizational change between the games not really a rules change.

3) Skill Mastery at character creation

In both DH and RT there is a paragraph on this. It does say if you get a skill twice you get the +10 mastery. However this refers ONLY to the circumstance at character creation where due to combination of homeworld, background, path, and career a character gets the same skill from 2 different sources. Then he gets to go ahead and start at +10. Otherwise he must wait until +10 becomes availible on his career advancement scheme (and if starting with +10, must wait until +20 comes up on the advance scheme to move up to +20). You cannot spend XP to buy the same skill twice to short circuit the mastery process.

4) Multiple purchases of Talents

For most skill and talent advances you may only take that particular advance only once. However, there are certain specific talents (i.e. Sound Constitution; Psychic Technique; et al.) that you may take more than once. The talents which may be taken multiple times state so specifically in the talent descriptions, and the limits on the number many times you may take the talents are stated in the career advance lists from which they are purchased. So UNLESS the talent description explicitly states otherwise, you may only take a talent ONCE.

FFG Ross Watson said:

Thanks for the clarification. I was only at GenCon one day to run a tournament, so I missed a few opportunities to meet you.

You know stats for the Hunting Rifle are missing from the Armory. I just pulled out DH and got the info from there.

dragonmarkeddm said:

What doesn't make sense is if all your skills are "Basic" (half your characteristic value) and anyone can use them, why bother putting that checkbox on the character sheet?

Nevermind. I figured it out.

Maxim C. Gatling said:

Because some people treat adavanced skills as basic skills. Example from DH an acolyte from an Imperial world treats speak language (High Gothic) and literacy as a basic skill. They are advanced skills but for that player they are basic

True seeing as advanced skills you can never ever jsut attempt without being first trained.