Has there been any discussion on the boards concerning disparities in the starting skill scores between the various races?

I'll explain what I mean - if you review Backgrounds for each of the various races, you'll notice that the sum of Body, Heart, and Wits for each background and each race is 14. This never changes across the board, i.e. every race and every background rearranges the basic underlying scores but the sum of the three is always the same.

Now, if you'll look at the racial starting skills, take the various base levels (or, points), add them all together, and this pattern is different, yielding different sums for the various races, e.g Bardings - 20, Beornings - 18, Dwarves - 17, Elves - 18, Hobbits - 18, Woodmen - 19.

I realize the variance is small (de minimis, perhaps) but, still there. Clearly, skills and their advancement after char-gen is largely up to the individual player and the opportunities presented in game. However, one might say that Bardings have an advantage in their starting skills over every other race and Dwarves (poor Dwarves!) have a disadvantage vs. all others.

Given the balance in other areas, was this intended? An error, i.e. should all racial starting skill arrays total 20? Am I missing something, e.g. are other races compensated in some other way at char-gen? Does it even matter?

This is interesting and something I had not really noticed. Particularly, the Skill Points; I would think that Elves would have the more skill points to work with due to their longevity and the fact that they are the one race on an active war footing with the Shadow (ie more opportunity for experience). I as well would like to know the answer to this question.

I seem to remember someone doing a color coded breakdown of this.

You need to factor skill ranking rather than just adding up skill points. If memory serves, it balances out when you do that (fewer skills, but higher ranked vs more, low ranked skills).

The mathematics are Skill Level 1 costs one point to buy, Skill Level 2 costs 3 points to but and Skill Level 3 costs 6 points to buy. I believe all the Heroic Cultures have 29 points worth.

@Doc - that's it exactly. If you use the skill point costs from Part 6 of the AB (pg. 171) and cross it with each starting skill array, you'll find that each "costs" 116 points so, as you say, in balance (regardless of totals).

And, honestly, that's what I was after to begin with, i.e. what is the common cost of a starting skill template. I got it now!

Thanks for the quick responses!

@Halbarad - Or, that! (I guess I could've simplified . . . *grumbles* always hated math.