Hi!

I´m a new RT Player and i got i little confused about the character creation rules.

I read alot of threads in this forum about how to distribute your skills and talents but i couldnt find any information regarding the synergy of your origin paths and starting skills.

I know that you cant buy a rank 1 talent / skill that was already taken because of your starting skills. Does this also count for the skills from your origin path?

Furthermore: If you got a skill, e.g. intimidation, through your origin path and also through your starting skills, do they stack up to a +10 skill?
As an example: The Arch Militant can start with Intimidation via the Birthright Stubjack. He also gains Intimidation as a starting talent.

If so, do you have to buy the rank 2 intimdation +10 skill to advance further to rank 3 intimidation?

Thx so far

Rules As Written (RAW) any duplicate entries are wasted. Having Intimidate from your birthright and your Rank 1 class options garners you no benefit, RAW.

You could use this fact to try to persuade your DM that you deserve to be able to take Intimidate+10 as an elite advance early.

Personally, my DM rules that duplicates count as the next relevant rank. I find this nice, although it's probably not strictly balanced. On the other hand, a sense of strict balance is a very silly thing to aim for in an FFG 40k RPG.

Andriel said:

Yes.

Andriel said:

Yes. See sidebar page 15. "If you receive the same Skill more than once from different sources, you gain Skill Mastery in that Skill."

Andriel said:

(Skill, not Talent.)

Andriel said:

No. You already have Intimidate +10 (the necessary prerequisite), so you can buy Intimidate +20 once you get to Rank 3.

Thanks you both and thanks again Iku Rex, that was quite helpfull!

Flail-Bot said:

The Core Rules state, that if you get a skill double you gain Skill Mastery, so RAW is you do increase your skills.

My understanding is that skill mastery gives a +10 to the skill but not the next rank. So if you get skill mastery in Intimidate then it is just a +10 in the far right column of the skill and when you can buy the Intimidate +10 at Rank 3 you do so and have a total skill modifier of +20.

Zenoth16 said:

This is my understanding as well. You do not gain "Intimidate +10", but instead gain "Skill Mastery (Intimidate)", which gives you a +10 bonus. It functions similar to the Talented (Skill) Talent, but is free. The relevant rule for this is on Page 74 of the Core Rulebook

Erathia said:

No. Skills do not have "ranks" in Rogue Trader. If you buy Charm +10 you have Skill Mastery in Charm.

Heya, I do have the same questions, and some more.

So just to clarify and write on stone. If my character get a skill through his history path, and then the same skill is given to him by his choice in Career, both stack and he receives a +10 Bonus, right? (I thought that the rule only worked for equal skills/talents received while on the history path)

This will be a tad silly, but I need to be sure to ward off against power gamers. If the history path (for example, the hand of war) Offer you a ranged weapon talent, would it be included in the options of choice Exotic weapons, or the "Universal" talent group?

Also, again this question will be silly, but if my character gets a primitive melee weapon training, and then the universal weapon training, it would stack with bonus? Or only if the Career had the same talent?

It's been a while since I've stuck with RAW for this, but my understanding is that during Character Creation only, if you would gain a skill or talent twice, you must instead gain the Skill Mastery or Talented talents as appropriate. Arguably this should include the default skills and talents you get with your Career package as well.

There aren't any restrctions on the Weapon Training talent that I'm aware of with Hand of War.

Primitive and Universal are different talents and do not stack in any way.

Obviously all of this is completely up to you as a GM. These rules were pretty obviously never tested with balancing a power-gamer in mind, so the game has more than a few aspects that need to be reined in if you want to keep everyone on a level footing.

Skill Mastery +10 is fairly nice to have, but it's usually a very cheap rank 3 or 4 purchase for most of your starting skills anyway, and so most power-gamers are only going to go for it in creation if they have a particular that defines them or their playstyle (Explorator w/ Tech-Use, Navigator with Warp Navigation, Rogue Trader with Command), and those most useful and obvious skills aren't easy ones to get in backstory creation. Talented, on the other hand, isn't easy for anyone to get, and essentially raises their base and max with a particular skill by 10… I wouldn't blame anyone for trying extra-hard to get a copy of Talented for their key skill during character creation, but it's a pretty big power increase across the life of the character (the skill mastery is just getting an upgrade early, but Talented is an upgrade they couldn't usually plan on getting, at least not without paying through the nose for it as an Elite Advance, and even then I'd likely wait until they maxed that skill at +20 anyway). Still, they are trading a Talent for it, and probably rather restricting their choices in the origin path (assuming you aren't just using free pick all around - I typically give my players two or three "skips" they can spend to move more than one choice horizontally - it gives a lot more choice without giving them total command of the Path, and only give extra skips out for great backstories they can only justify with more skips)… up to you if you think that's OP or not.

To directly answer Boaventura's questions, if you get the same skill twice during creation, then you get the +10 version of that skill - the same as if you'd bought the +10 version off your character's Career Path. That means you CAN'T buy the +10 version off the Career path (you can still buy the +20 when you get to that rank), because you already have it. If you get the same Talent twice during creation, you get Talented (any one skill you don't already have Talented for), which is a +10 bonus, but isn't the Skill +10 that can be found on the Career Path (and so doesn't help you qualify for Alternate Ranks or allow you to skip buying the +10 before going to the +20 version of a skill).

You can pick any Weapon Training Talent. That includes Melee (Universal), Melee (Primitive), Pistol (Universal), Pistol (Primitive), Basic (Universal), Basic (Primitive), Heavy (any one group), Flame, Thrown, or Exotic (any one specific exotic weapon). Technically, you could pick a more limited Weapon Training, like Heavy (Flame) or Basic (Las), but I don't know why you would…

There's no overlap between Melee (Universal), which covers all non-Exotic non-Primitive melee weapons, and Melee (Primitive), which covers all non-Exotic Primitive melee weapons. However, as a GM, I typically go ahead and fold Primitive into Universal anyway, since, really, if you can use a power sword and a mono sword and a chain sword (and even a chain-mono-sword!), you should be able to use a sword. That could, though, open up a new opportunity for people to get their hands on a Talented talent during creation, if you allow it, so think about it first…

Thank you very much for your answers. My gamers not even started the game, and they showed up to me with combos to max a certain skill or attribute... and then I show them that they don't matter against a long las to the head...