I just downloaded the rules, and took a skim through them. Looks great!

I don't think I saw a section that details how untrained skills are resolved, though, especially as they pertain to combat. And I don't really have any experience with BRP to draw from. The delineation between Expert and Basic skills is also a little confusing to me.

So here are my questions...

1.) Is 'Firearms' considered a Basic skill? Or does it only exist in the form of the 'Pistol', 'Shotgun', 'Rifle' Expert skills?

2.) If a character does not possess any sort of skill with guns, my thought is that they should still be able to pick up and try to fire one. How might I resolve that? An attribute check at 1/2 or 1/4 Dexterity? An attribute check against Luck? OR assuming that 'Firearms' IS a Basic skill, would it automatically be set to 20 during character creation (as described at the very end of page 37)?

Thanks for the help!

Hey. Great question!

Firearms aren't a basic skill. They are an expert skill. So normally a character without a rifle expert skill simply wouldn't have a rifle or know how to use one.

If however, a character did pick up a rifle and want to use it, we would normally rule that the skill would start out at 20%. (like untrained basic skills). Unless they revealed it as an expert skill.

Since this situation is not included in the booklet, the GM is allowed to make the call. They may choose to rule that an untrained skill starts at 1%. Which is how basic BRP would resolve it. We've chosen not to get too nitty gritty with Embers and leave some stuff up to the GM to rule.