If someone can point me to an FAQ that answers these newbie questions, that would be great.

1. Characteristic advances come in 4 levels, and you buy each in turn getting +5 each time. However, many of the skills (at least according to my PDF character sheet have "Basic, Trained, +10, +20." How does this work. For example, if your character has an advance available that says inquiry +10%, can I just buy it and mark off the inquiry +10 column (and get +10 to the target number I need to roll under), or do I have to "buy" basic inquiry, trained inquriy, first. I don't see basic inquiry or trained inquiry in the advances. If the latter is the case, what is the difference betwee a Basic level of skill and a Trained level of skill.

2. Weapon training seems to come in the flavor of "Basic" (Type), then "specific weapon like pistol (Type)." Do I have to buy the former before I buy the latter. What's the difference - the first I know negates the "you don't know how to use that kind of weapon penalty, but what about the 2nd. Does it give me a bonus when using a pistol of that type?

3. Just to verify my understanding of the core mechanic: (1) pick the stat (or skill); (2) add bonus (or penalty) if it's a skill and you don't have ranks; (3) gm assigns +modifiers (if easy) or -modifiers (if hard) to the target; (4) you try to rll under everything up through 3; (5) if you roll under, you succeed. For every 10 points under, you've got a bonus (or extra failure if you roll over.

4. Looking at the psycher, you only seem to get major powers around level 6, then sort of one-a-pop at each level. So, even a high-level inquisitor aclyote fromo DH is at most going to have 2-3 major powers, right?

Thanks in advance.

All the answers to your questions are in the rulebook. I'd suggest giving it another read through so you properly understand the rules.

However:

1) You start off with some skills already at Basic - the rulebook states which ones. You don't buy "basic" training in a skill, it's something you automatically get. Those skills you start off at Basic with, you can use, but you only roll 1/2 the associated characteristic for the skill test.

When you look at the career tables, you'll notice that the skills are named, for example, Barter (which gives you the trained level), Barter +10, and Barter +20. You must buy them in order, meaning that to get Barter +10, you must have bought the standard skill, and to get Barter +20, you need Barter +10. This is stated in the pre-req section on each career rank table.

2) If you read through the actual Basic Weapon Training talent, and the armoury, you'll have seen that "Basic" in this case means weapons like rifles, carbines, etc. Basic Weapon Training talents have nothing to do with Pistols, or whatever.

3) Yes, though you can roll equal to your target number and still pass.

4) If you had read the Psy Rating talents, you'll have seen that you get powers given to you just by dint of buying those talents. The Power listings in the career tables are just for extra powers you might want to buy.

As I said at the start, I think you just need to read things through again, as most of your questions are answered fairly easily by reading through the appropriate parts of the book.

Don't know about the faq that will contain answers to these specific questions, but i can answer them here.

1. Characteristic advances do come in four levels, each one giving cumulative +5 to specific statisti, so before you buy for example cleric's trained level Fel (+15 to Fellowship), you need first to buy Simple level (+5) and then Intermediate level (+5+5=+10).
Skills are based on cartain characteristics, but can also be trained further on their own, for example if you look up 1 level cleric (novice), you'll see that it has Inquiry skill avalible for purchase, if you then look up 3 level cleric (priest), you'l' see that it has Inquiry +10, which is treated as being better at Inquiring and needs Inquiry skill from level 1 already purchased (you cannot become better at something you cannot do). Basicaly it gives you +10 bonus at Inquiry tests so suming it up if you have your starting Fel 35, purchased simple Fel advance (now Fel 40) and purchased Inquiry, and then Inquiry+10 skills, you need to roll <=50 on your Inquiry test.

Now basic and trained skills. You have propably noticed that there are basic and advanced skills columns. If you have your skill trained, no matter in which column it is, you use whole your charateristic as a base of the tests before modifiers are added. If you do not have skill trained, but it is listed as basic, you use half your characteristic rounded up (everybody can try to climb, even if he isn't trained at it). Untrained advanced skills you cannot test at all (you cannot hope to understand language you don't know).

2. Weapons

Weapons are categorised by 2 main labels and by them split into groups:

- weapon type

- basic - mainly rifles and rifle-like weapons

- pistol - pistols

- exotic - alien weapons or otherwise very uncommon and non-typical weapons

- heavy - heavy machineguns, racket lunchers etc

- melee - melee weapons: swords, axes, staffs etc

- thrown - throwing knife, spear, throwing star

- ammunition/other

- ranged weapons categorised mainly by their ammunition type - las (laser weapons); SP (standard bullet weapons); bolt; plasma; melta; flame, launcher; primitive (bows, crossbows, throwing knife, musket, etc)

- meelee weapons categorised by 'how the damage is done' - primitive (any standard melee weapon), chain (chainswords, chainaxes), power (weapons with the power field), fore (weapons required to be used by psyker for full damage), shock (weapos which uses electricity as additional form of atack)

each weapon is categorised by 2 labels (one from each group),, so for example Las Carbine has 'basic' clas with 'Las'.

So if you buy Basic Weapon Training (SP), you know how to shoot, operate and reload hunting rifle, shotgun and so on, but not autopistol or laggun.

Using weapon which you are not trained with gives you -20 modifier to use and if it is ranged weapon, it counts as having Unreliable quality, making it more prone to jamming.

3. Your understanding of mechanics is right if I read it correctly.

4. Psykers gain their first Major Power at level 4 when they aquire Psy Rating 3 (they choose one Psychic Dyscipline and get one chosen power from it), and when they aquire higher Psy Rating, they have a choice between having more Major Powers from Psychic Dyscipline they've chosen earlier of start another dyscipline nad get one power from it. They can also buy Major Psychic Power talent which gives them one power each time ther purchase it. Read description of Psy Rating 3+ to have better understanding of it.
By math psyker on schoolar patch can very easly aquire 10+ powers from one discipline (gaining discipline mastery which makes manifesting those powers easier) and a few from others, while on militiant path it's possible but difficult to optain 10 powers from one (and only one) discipline.

Well, that was long. I hope it isn't very chaotic and people can actually make some sense from what's written here.

Thanks to both of you. I appreciate the answers - I'm sure your correct that they were in the book and I just didn't get them the first pass.