Can someone explain this difference in 3rd edition, please?

High Elves start with Education as an acquired skill. But it's not trained. I've read the rules a couple of times and I'm still confused.

Acquired means you can attempt to use the skill, but you do not get an expertise die with your roll. Trained means you gain an Expertise die to your roll when using the skill.

All characters begin with all Basic Skills Acquired and so can use any of those skills, without expertise dice. However you do not begin with Advanced skills Acquired, which means you can't even attempt those skills.

When putting Advancement points or creation points into skills, then either you put them into basic skills and so they become Trained, or you can put them into advanced skills and so you Acquire them, unless you put another point into them, then they would be trained.

Education is an advanced skill and so no-one can even attempt a roll using it, unless they Acquire it as a skill first. Meaning very few people in the Old World can read or write. High Elves are meant to be more intellectual than humans and so automatically gain Education as Acquired. So it is easier for them to Train it.

Hope this clears it up a little.

Gazery

Everybody begins only with basic skills acquired. This means that anyone can use any basic skill. To get better at it, you train it (yellow dice). This means that anyone can use first aid, charm, weapon skill, etc.

Advanced skills cannot be used unless you 'acquire' them first. You acquire them by spending points as detailed in the Errata. They cost extra if they are not on your career skill list on your career sheet.

• Education is a good example: If you do not have education acquired, you cannot read or write. Elves have this acquired, so they can read/write.
• Chanelling - to do spells (take a look at how it works for wizards).
• Dwarf Engineering - to make inventions (black fire pass)
• Magic Sight - to see the winds of magic

Once you've acquired an advanced skill, then you can train it just like a basic skill.

Worth noting is that Initiates do not begin with their Invocation Advanced Skill acquired, which means if you want to cast spells as a priest, you have to spend points to buy that "Acquired" first.

Apprentice wizards on the other hand, begin with Channeling acquired.

From the Player's Guide:

Starting Wizards & Priests
Characters who begin with the Apprentice Wizard career
have a much broader selection of skills available to them
than most other careers, but also must invest heavily in
skills to make use of their iconic, defining abilities. To help
offset this, apprentice wizards automatically acquire the
advanced skills Channelling and Spellcraft for free during
character creation. Wizard characters also begin play with
several additional basic action cards, collectively referred
to as “Petty Magic.” Add the Channel Power, Magic Dart,
Cantrip, and Counterspell cards to your action deck if
you create a new wizard character. A character who later
transitions into a wizard career receives no such free training
and will have to learn to use his powers the hard way.
Starting priest characters—called Initiates—do not receive
the same free bonuses that wizards do. Not all priests
are capable of invoking blessings, and doing so is not the
essence of what priesthood is about, therefore Initiates do
not acquire Piety or Invocation for free during character
creation. However, a newly created Initiate character who
begins the game with Piety acquired or trained will also
add the Curry Favour card to his action deck. An Initiate
who begins the game with Invocation acquired or trained
adds Minor Blessing, Minor Ward, and Blessing of
Health to his action deck. Otherwise, the character must
invest advances

Thanks guys! So I guess the only question that is left:

Does this mean that acquiring a skill counts as your advancement for that skill in the tier? (So, for example, can you spend 2 points on Education to get it trained when you still have less than 9 xp?)

I don't think it expressly says in the rules. However, this has obviously come up in our games and so we have played that you can acquire AND train an advanced skill in the same character rank.

I believe it says something in the line of, 'you may only TRAIN each skill once per rank,' but makes no mention of acquire. We took this to be that acquiring an advanced skill is NOT training the skill, so you can still train the skill without breaking the rules.

A note on costs to acquire and train an advanced skill - it costs 1 advance to acquire and 1 advance to train ONLY if that skill is a career skill.

Otherwise you have to acquire and train the skill as non-career advances, and this time it costs 4 advances to acquire and 4 advances to train.

So advanced skills are VERY expensive if they are not a career skill.

Gazery

Correct. The rules state you can only "Train" once per rank. Acquire is not the same as training. The Errata talks about this somewhat where spending points on skills does NOT count towards your career completion bonus either.