Couple questions came up during the character creation process.
1) In the beginner box, it says that your max skill ranks equal your level , so if you're level 1, you can't have more than 1 rank in a skill. After reading the core rulebook, I'm confused. It says the max skill rank is your hit die. So if I'm playing a level 1 barbarian, does that mean I get 12 skill ranks because my hit die max is equal to 12? How do I treat skill ranks after the first level?
2) When buying equipment we came across a column that said dmg(s) and dmg(m). What does this mean? I can't find a reference to it anywhere. The best we could come up with was that it was the size of the weapon (small and medium), but even then we weren't sure what race/class could use what size weapon.
#1: It's still ranks=level. Hit Dice refers to how many dice you have rolled for hit points (i.e. a 5th level fighter has 5 hit dice). Just another way of saying that.
#2: Yes, dmg(s) is damage for a weapon that is made for small creatures, such as halflings and gnomes. dmg(m) is the weapon damage for weapons made for the rest of the core races. It's mostly a racial thing. There is a -2 penalty to attack rolls for using inappropriate sized weapons, but that usually comes into play when a small character uses a medium sized weapon.