Hey all, I’m trying to figure out skill advancements, experience costs, and the difference between basic and trained on the character sheet.

When I read the book, I could’ve sworn each characteristic and each skill had four tiers of advancement. So I’m going through character generation and there are a few discrepancies that are throwing me off.

Rolling up an Ultramarine. All DW space marines get the first tier of command, but his chapter is able to purchase the following: Command, Command +10, Command +20. All DW marines also get two ranks of Awareness and Concealment at start. All Ultramarines are able to purchase charm, charm+10, and charm +20 at any time.

General Space Marine advancements include the above listed 3 advancements for command and charm (at varying ranks). There are also 3 advancements available for purchase at varying ranks for awareness and concealment.

None of the skills, even advanced skills that require training in order to attempt, have four tiers of advancement listed as possible purchases. Why does the character sheet have four blocks (basic, trained, +10, +20)? Why is it important for him to have two dots on concealment and awareness on his character sheet; what impact does it have?

Does he have to purchase the basic skill level twice in order to get to the +10/+20?

Please help clarify this for me, I just can’t seem to find anything in the book that specifically addresses the difference between basic and trained ratings on a skill at all. It’s like it doesn’t exist, but for the fact that its on his character sheet.

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In Only War, skill advancement goes four tiers: basic, +10, +20, +30.

Let me get this out of the way first: the character sheet included in the Core Rulebook has some glaring mistakes, so take its contents with a grain of salt (e.g. Dodge is supposed to be Trained for Space Marines according to p. 36 of Core, and Barter and Blather are Skills from other 40k lines, but not used in DW).

Now, in DW, there are two types of Skills - Basic and Advanced. In a nutshell, Basic type tests may be attempted without relevant training, against half of the relevant Characteristic value as target - everyone may attempt to climb a mountain or dog-paddle in a body of water without being trained in mountaineering or swimming, respectively. This is what the first column represents. It is coloured for all Basic type skills, and left empty for all Advanced type skills. You can also look up which Skills are Basic in Table 3-1 on p. 93 .

For Basic type skills, the full value of the Characteristic may be used only after you get relevant training (i.e. buy the skill). Advanced skills may not be tested without getting the Skill first; then, you may use the full value of the Characteristic right away. If you buy an Advanced skill, you leave the first box empty, and start with marking the second column on the sheet. The third and fourth, +10 and +20, works the same way for both. Using your example, your Ultramarine may attempt a Command test any time, even without having the Trained box checked in, since it is a basic skill. If he has a Fellowship value of 45, you need to roll under 22 for success.

About the multiple ways of getting Skills and Talents: Advancement tables purposefully contain duplicates (there are even starting Space Marine skills and talents listed). This is done to allow the player more freedom in developing the character, to make creating custom advancements easier, and supposedly to maintain compatibility between lines - check the framed text on p. 59 . That means if you want to buy Command +10 to your Ultramarine Tactical, you can choose to buy it for 400 XP from the Ultramarine table at any time, or wait until Rank 4 to buy it from the General Space Marine advances for 500 XP. Basically when buying a Skill or Talent, you need to cross-reference the General SM Advances, the Deathwatch Advances, the relevant Chapter Advances and the relevant Speciality Advances table (and quite possibly the Special Advances table, too).

Hope that helped to clear the issue

Edit : If we talk about the character sheet, let me ask my own question, too. Under the Characteristic number, there are six little circles, which are (I think) meant to track how many Characteristic Advances the PC has. For every Characteristic, one can buy a +5 Advance four times. Even if we want to track Bonuses given by the Chapter during creation (which is silly, why would anyone do that), leaves one unexplained. So why six? Why?

Couple of clarifying points.

At character creation you can choose from a number of tables. None are exclusive or prevent you from choosing from the others (unlike DHv1). The tables are general marine rank 1, DW marine rank 1, Your chapter table, and your class table rank 1. These tables intentionally have a lot of overlap and even duplication (future proofing they call it).

In only war you 4 ranks of skills +0,+10.+20,+30. In Deathwatch you have a clunkier +0,+10,+20 and a talent (skill). The talent (skill) adds another +10 bonus just like skill advancements but is harder to find on the charts and can be taken any time you see it. It isn't dependant on the other skill levels as prereqs. (you can understand why OW simplified it to just having a +30 level)

Got it, thanks!

Edit : If we talk about the character sheet, let me ask my own question, too. Under the Characteristic number, there are six little circles, which are (I think) meant to track how many Characteristic Advances the PC has. For every Characteristic, one can buy a +5 Advance four times. Even if we want to track Bonuses given by the Chapter during creation (which is silly, why would anyone do that), leaves one unexplained. So why six? Why?

Because DW rules and sheets are a DH1 ripoff(just have a look at the crit tables...), and there they need those two for ascension if I remember correctly. My guess is, they just forgot about those.

Hey, thanks! I knew some of DW Core is directly copy-pasted, but I never played DH1, so I couldn't figure this one out.