I just go the EotE core book and I have a question about something.

Perhaps this is a stupid thing to ask, but I'm not clear on what exactly the phrase 'next highest' means in regards to costs to increase characteristics or skill ranks.

On page 30, it states that each of these things cost a certain multiplier of the 'next highest' rank. Does this mean the next rank in that specific characteristic/skill? (I.E. 2 if a character's current rank is 1) Or does it mean the next highest overall rank out of all of their skills? (I.E. 3, because one skill is the 'highest' at 3 even though the player is trying to rank up a different, lower one.) Or is it something else entirely?

Any help would be very much appreciated, thanks!

Looks like you got it right on your first example. "Next Highest" meaning to increase an Agility 3 to the "next highest" characteristic would be 40 XP to an Agility 4. Now, I think they put this terminology in here to explain the cases where you would take say a Brawn of 1 to 3. You need to spend XP to take the characteristic to the "next highest" score, then the "next highest" score or in this case ... 20 XP to raise the Brawn 1 to 2 and then 30 XP to raise it to a 3 for a total of 50 XP. You do this with skills as well adding an extra 5 XP for each rank increase if it's not a career/specialization skill.

Z