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My gaming group and I are starting a Rogue Trader game and we were making characters last night and ran into a snag. There are Basic and Advanced Skills, and you can have Basic knowledge or be Trained in each. But every person in the galaxy has Basic knowledge of them, so what is the column named "Basic" in the skills section on the character sheet for ? If ALL characters have basic knowledge, why do we need the boxes then? What are they for?

And how does the interaction between the skill type and a character's training level work exactly? We went over this for about an hour and couldn't figure it out.

HALP!

Basic skills are so commonly known or understood that any person can try to use them, however if you don't actually have the skill (ie a tick in the box) due to your class/etc etc then you test on half the usual characteristic. See the bit on page 74.

I don't have my own copy of the book yet, but can you give me an example of a class that doesn't have something as a Basic skill.

There are two types of Skills in DH/RT - Basic Skills and Advanced Skills.

Basic Skills are something you can always use, even when you don't have the Skill in question. So, if the GM calls for an Awareness (Per) Test, and you don't have 'Awareness' as a Skill, that's fine, you can still take the Awareness Test, you just have to take your base Perception value and halve it (eg. I have Perception 45, but don't have Awareness, so I would take an Awareness Test using a Perception value of 23 (45/2 = 22.5, rounded up)). So when you look at your character sheet down the list of Basic Skills, those are all things you can do as 'Untrained' Basic Skills. Once you acquire that Skill it becomes a 'Trained' Basic Skill and you can use your full characteristic value to take those tests.

Advanced Skills are specific skills that you can never take unless you have them. So something like Tech-Use (Int) is an Advanced Skill. If you don't have Tech-Use, you can't conduct any tests that make use of Tech-Use. You need to have purchased that Skill as an advance with your EXP points.


Finally some Advanced Skills can be counted as Basic Skills should the type of character call for it. For example, in DH, if your character is Hive Born, you gain Tech-Use as a Basic Skill, so you can use it even if you don't have it. DH doesn't stipulate if that means 'Untrained' (ie. halve your base value to use it), but RT often does.

Did that help at all?

Yes, but then why is there a "Basic" box to mark for skills? Doesn't everyone have that level of ability?

Not quite. Let me explain again.

A Basic Skill is something you can always use. Let's use Dodge as a good example as it's very common.

You can always Dodge. You don't have to have Dodge in order to use Dodge. However, if you don't have Dodge, whenever you use Dodge you have to halve your Agility as you are using an untrained basic skill. Those that have Dodge use their base Agility stat as they are trained in that skill.

To summarise.

1. Untrained Basic Skills - Can always be used, but at half the stat required to use it.
2. Trained Basic Skills - Can always be used at the full value of the stat required to use it.
3. Advanced Skills - Can only be used by someone who has that Advanced skill, and are used at the full value of the stat required to use it.

The only addition to this are the +10's and +20's to those various skills.

The presence of the 'Basic' box on the RT character sheet was added (as opposed to the DH sheet where it is not present) to represent those Skills which are counted as Basic Skills. There are always a set of Skills that everyone regards as Basic (Climb, Awareness, Dodge, Barter, etc.). But then there are ways of modifying your character so that Advanced Skills become Basic Skills. Using the example from my last post, Tech-Use (Int) is an Advanced Skill that uses your full Intelligence stat. A Hive Born PC treats Tech-Use as a Basic Skill, so in the case of a RT sheet, you'd tick the 'Basic' box next to Tech-Use, meaning that that character can always use Tech-Use, but until they become Trained in it (ie. purchase the skill with EXP) they'll be making Tech-Use (Int) Tests and half their base Intelligence stat. Once that PC buys Tech-Use, you tick the 'Trained' box as well, so it becomes a Trained Basic Skill (ie. taken at the full value of the stat) rather than just a Basic Skill (taken at half the value of the stat).

Does that make sense now?

Yes, finally. So what the sheet needs is a better distinction between basic and advanced skills, or the game needs a different name for basic skills (general, for example).

Thank you very much. I get it now.