Okay so the Basic Skills being used untrained states the following:

"Characters have intrinsic abilities and Characteristics that allow for rudimentary attempts at tests with basic Skills. Thus, even though a character may not possess basic Skills, he may still make Skill Tests using them. Those who do not possess a basic Skill may test that Skill at half of the associated Characteristic, rounding down. The Characteristic gets halved before any situational modifiers get applied to the test. For example, an Easy test against an untrained basic
Skill would be (Characteristic/2)+30, and not (Characteristic +30)/2. Even though the character might be able to muddle through such attempts, he does not have the same abilities as one who has received real training or instruction."

Okay so I know I haven't had my morning coffee but wouldn't this make the Untrained characters chances better than someone who had at least Basic skill levels?

So a character with a Characteristic of 30 attempting and Easy Test would have the following:

Basic Training: 30 (characteristic) + 30 (Easy Test modifier) = 30 (60/2)

Untrained : 15 (Characteristic/2) + 30 (Easy Test Modifier) = 45

OK either I am missing something here (which is probably the case) or are you supposed to again divide the Untrained skill by 2 or have they been switched around?

Would appreciate some help or clarification

Cheers,

Ebon

Basic Skills are simply skills that you can always attempt, such as swimming. These are seperate from Advanced skills, which cannot be attempted at all unless trained. All PCs possess all Basic skills at some level. There is no 'untrained' level, simply, Basic, Trained, +10, and +20.

Basic skills at the lowest, Basic level use half the associated characteristic from tests, whereas where trained, they use the whole characteristic, etc.

Of course. I should have seen that, just got blinded by the math and the fact they started talking about making checks if you didn't have training in a Basic Skill.

Thanks,

Ebon.

Actually, there is a difference between untrained and trained basic skills.

Untrained Basic, Character may still use this skill but treat the associated characteristic score (strength, agility, etc.) is half of its normal value. Only the character's characteristic score is halved, any modifiers from test difficulty, tools, assistance, etc. are unchanged.

Example: A character is attempting to dodge an incoming log from a clever enemy trap. His agility is 30 but since he has not trained in dodge he only uses half of his agility, 15, to make the test. Since the log is moving fairly slowly the test is considered routine (+10). The character needs to roll under 25 (15 +10) to dodge the log.

Trained Basic: Characters may use this skill as normal.

Untrained Advanced: A character may not use this skill. If they were ever to need to, they fail automatically.

Trained Advanced: A character may use this skill as normal.

And remember:

Having a skill at Basic (rolling at half characteristic) level means you STILL need to get it as an advance to make it Trained (rolling at full) before you can get the +10 advance.

This issue would be fairly solved had the book presented the first advance as "Trained (Skill name)" and not just the skill name. I know it is obvious for those who understand the difference between basic skills and advanced skills (which are automatically trained unless some other rules says it's some sort of "untrained advanced skill" , because, at this point, calling it a "basic advanced skill" would be ridiculous and even more confusing) but at first glance, all this could be tremendously complicated for a newcomer.

Sorry for the double post, but I just noticed that Herichimo used the term untrained advanced skill for his example, what I meant as:

Salsa said:

was actually: "innate advanced skill" which would still require the player to acquire the Trained advance for it.