You cannever have more ranks in a skill than your total # of hit dice?

The title sais it all, can any one explain this to me? To me this does not sound right. Take the Barbarian, she get a D12 for her hit dice, not more than one D12, so dose that mean she can never have more than one rank in a skill.

Obviously this is not the case. I also must confess that I a not finished reading the rule book, nor have I played a game yet, am I to assume hat as your character progress she will acquire a greater number of hit dice?

You generally have 1 hit dice for every level you have.

For instance, a barbarian 2/wizard 1/rogue 1 (if there is such a thing), would have 4 hit dice: 2d12+1d6+1d8, not counting Con bonuses and favored class additions, etc.

This same character, then, cannot have more than 4 ranks in any one skill. This doesn't include the +3 class skill bonus or other mod bonuses to each skill.

You generally have 1 hit dice for every level you have.

For instance, a barbarian 2/wizard 1/rogue 1 (if there is such a thing), would have 4 hit dice: 2d12+1d6+1d8, not counting Con bonuses and favored class additions, etc.

This same character, then, cannot have more than 4 ranks in any one skill. This doesn't include the +3 class skill bonus or other mod bonuses to each skill.

So what if I do not multiclass, will I ever get more than one hit dice?

Yes you will. As in my example, the 2nd level barbarian portion has hit dice 2d12, which is 2 hit dice.

A pure 4th level barbarian has 4 hit dice - 4d12.

"hit dice" in its simplest definition is how many dice are rolled to determine a creature's total hit points.

Each class level a PC will get grants them 1HD per along with the appropriate abilities, BAB, and saves.

You get a certain number of skills to choose from depending on your class. Wizards can choose 2 + their INT modifier, while Rogues can choose 8 + INT mod.

No matter how many skills you choose, you may never have more than your level/HD (they mean pretty much the same thing) in ranks.

So Bob the 1st level Cleric has a 10 Int (meaning no bonus) and has 2 skills per level to choose he could take:

Knowledge (religion) 1 rank
Spellcraft 1 rank

At 2nd level Bob can either put another rank in the two skills he chose before OR can take 2 entirely different skills OR any combination of the previous. So Bob says I wanna try something new and picks up Heal and puts another rank into Spellcraft. Now bob has:

Heal 1 rank
Knowledge (religion) 1 rank
Spellcraft 2 ranks

Bob has Spellcraft "maxed out" with 2 ranks. Next level he could use both his skill points to put 2 ranks into Heal (bringing it to 3 ranks), but not Spellcraft (as that would take it to 4 ranks, one higher than his level/HD).

--School of Vrock

You get one HD for every level you gain. Without multiclassing all your HD are of the same type while multiclassing might get you different sized HD - otherwise it goes exactly the same.

One class character example: 4th level Barbarian has 4d12 - four hit dice.
Multiclass character example: aforementioned Barbarian 2/Wizard 1/Rogue 1 has 2d12+1d6+1d8 for a total of 4 HD too, except the dice rolled for hit points are different.

OK, very good. I understand now. Thank you gentlemen.