It states very clearly in the rules that Basic skills can be used by anyone and that clearly they have only 4 ranks, untrained, trained, +10% and +20% AND no more. I get this and this is fine. Simple things like Command and Dodge can be done up anyone as 'untrained' at half the attached attribute, Ag or Fel for example, again fine.

However I have a problem with brand new characters and their 'starting skills', take the Rogue Trader for example, many of 'his' starting sills, such as Command are in fact basic skills, so bearing in mind that basic skills are skills everyone has already at 'untrained' I first thought that the rules meant I get these as 'trained' but not so. In the Rank 1 advance, Command exists again at 100xp, and again at Rank 2 with the +10% and again in Rank 3 as +20%, so the starting skills is in fact 'untrained' but everyone has this, so hardly a 'starting skill' of any use as all characters get this anyway. Many of the other careers are like this, with basic skills being listed as 'starting skills' and the upgrade to 'trained' in the Rank 1 advance table.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

My thought definately was to treat them as 'trained' but it then makes more than half of the Rank 1 advances completly pointless as you can't have +10% until Rank 2.

Any help on this please? My shrewd PC will spot this instantly and I can't explain it at the moment.

The skills & talents your characters have at start are recapitulated in the chart with their cost, just to give an idea or their costs, if you want to swap them with something else, or if they chose an alternative carreer rank.

Ahhh, I see, so the skills are 'trained' afterall - which of course makes sense! Cheers, Mike

He can't buy Command again at rank 1 from the rank 1 skill list. He already has it. This is covered in the errata. http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/rogue-trader/support/rogue-trader-errata-1-1.pdf

I remember having a very similar problem when I first looked through the books as well. Namely I wasn't sure why they bothered listing skills/traits that you already got for free considering that there wasn't any way to take the career and not get those skills/traits. But as the others have said, they're just there to give an idea of costs and is specifically mentioned in the errata as being there basically as a 'just in case we ever need it' sort of thing. I do like that they thought ahead to possibly needing it in the future, but would have been nice if they'd included a slight clarification in the book somewhere.

thanks both - I didn't know about the errata but downloaded it now. it now all makes sense... Happy playing!

Another point to remember is that say you import a Dark Heresy character with 5,000 XP into Rogue Trader. Your DH character is something other than a Rogue Trader.....then he becomes a Rogue Trader, rank 1. You may want this character to be able to purchase the Command skill.

Characters created from scratch in RT are assumed to have had experiences prior to their creation and thus have these already purchased. The DH character does NOT automatically get the starter skills just because he is changing careers.

What? No he doesn't. Your DH character remains whatever career he was in DH. You don't automatically get switched to the Rogue Trader career.

I never said automatically . There are ways to change careers, and the book states that there will be in the future alternate career paths, ie different ways to arrive at an rank 1 Rogue Trader other than simply rolling one up from scratch.

Ah, the way you said it it sounded like an automatic change.