The rule books mention that action cards have a rank and that getting higher rank action cards costs more but I didn't see anytihng on the cards themselves to indicate this. Am I just confused?

From the top of my head I can only think about the “Improved Parry”, “Improved Block”, etc. cards – I think they are marked as advanced or something…

Spells also have ranks and as do some other cards IIR. It's there if you look for it.

ozean said:

The improved cards are still rank 1 cards. I'm not 100% certain, but I think the only rank 2 cards that exist at the moment are spells/blessings.

Spells and blessings are certainly ranked.

I don't have cards with me, but are the Ironbreaker related ancestor actions ranked at all? or the way of the sword cards?

I don't have my cards with me either, but as far as I remember Gruntl is right.

The only ranked cards are spell and blessing cards, other are either Basic, Advanced, Career Specific, or "common".

Seems to me, that the Ranks were designed with casting in mind, but I may be wrong, and maybe we will see some other Ranked cards in future supplements.

gruntl said:

Two questions then:

1. Do I need one or two advances to acquire them?
2. Can I acquire them before I finish rank one (i.e. with less then 10xp)?

ozean said:

1. They cost one advance as all actions cost (unless you're buying a, e.g., rank 2 card as a rank 1 PC). They are rank 1 cards.
2. Yes, you can even buy them at character creation if you fulfil the requirements (well, you may even be able to buy them without requirements, but you cannot use them until you fulfil the requirements).

For Improved dodge the requirement is that you have AG 4 or higher and are trained in Coordination.

To buy a card you must fulfill the cards requirements, rank isn't necessarily a requirement. If you are buying a card for a rank higher then you currently are it costs an extra character point per rank difference. Outside of character creation it costs an additional advance per difference in ranks.

Kryyst said:

There is no written rule that you have to fulfill requirements to buy an action card (as far as I know anyway, I might have missed it). Not that it matters, I cannot think of a single situation where buying actions you cannot use is a good choice.

This may have been addressed in the FAQ but by the book it does suggest that you can't buy an action card that you don't meat the requirements for, the rank doesn't matter just the requirements.

First under character creation you can't get the basic actions for Dodge, Parry or Block unless you meat the req. at chargen. It goes on to say that if you later on meet those requirements you can purchase those cards.

Then under advances it says:

General Career Advances

The first four lines of the Advancement Worksheet show advances that are available to characters in every career.

Action Card: Taking this advance allows a player to a new action card to add to his options. Some action cards may have special requirements – for example, only wizards can acquire new spells, and even then, the wizard can only acquire spells from his particular College of Magic.

Which suggests that you must meet the requirement to purchase the cards. It also makes sense from a story perspective. If you aren't agile or strong or whatever enough to learn how to do the action you shouldn't be able to purchase it. That differs from a rank requirement in that you are capable of pulling it off but it's trickier then what you are normally doing. Like learning an advance martial arts kick even though you are still a white belt.