When choosing Origins you may get basic untrained skills. When you choose a profession is it basic untrained or is it trained? Also, I remember you get skill mastery if you got a skill twice (I got Literacy basic skill from an Origin choice. My profession is Navigator and it says Literacy). I'm assuming if profession is basic untrained skilled, then my Literacy should now be Trained (basic from Origin, trained from Navigator). Or if Navigator starting skill of Literacy makes it trained, then should my Literacy be at +10%?

Thank you for your time.

Sorry, I meant to put this in the rules questions. I had to register and forgot to go there.

Allowing you to treat Literacy as a Basic skill instead of Advanced does not count towards providing Mastery. If you were a Noble-born Navigator then you would get the +10, but as a (presumably) Imperial-world born you do not.

Look at page 75. The list of skills indicates which ones are BASIC and can be used at Half characteristic whether the character has training in them or not.

Advanced skills that are treated as a BASIC skill by an explorer are at half characteristic (round down) as if it were a BASIC skill.

Page 74: sometimes a character can treat an advanced skill as a basic skill, allowing its use at half characteristic even though the character does not have the skill trained.

If you, later in character creation after the origin path) acquire training in that skill (an advanced skill treated as basic) it is treated as Trained +0, not as +10.

One easy method is to fill out all Basic skills on the character sheet before you do anything else. That makes it easier to keep track of things. But, to keep it simple:

If you get a skill that just lists the skill name, then its Trained. Example: All your skills that come from your class.

It will clearly mention if you get the unique ability to treat a normally non-basic skill as basic. It does just this, you get to use it at half characteristic where normal characters would be totally unable to.

If during character creation you get two Trained skills that are the same, then you get +10. So if an Origin Path selection gives you Tech-Use, then you play an Explorator, who also comes with Tech-Use, then you get Tech-Use +10.

Trained + Trained = Mastery

Basic + Trained = Trained

Basic + Basic = Basic

Yeah, I'm Imperial born.

kenshin138 said:

Where does it say this? I'm pretty sure it's like that in Dark Heresy, but I can't find anything of the like in Rogue Trader, though I may just be looking in the wrong place.