Relax
Explorer
You've made a pretty comprehensive teaching aid with only a few errors.
In the opening paragraph you mention a 1 is an automatic failure and a 20 is an automatic success, the opposite is true. This is corrected later in the document.
Skill levels range from 3-18.
When creating your character you get all skills at a base level, from 3-7, for "free" derived from your attribute score the skill is based on. You also get to start the game with a certain number of "trained" skills based on your age, 8, 10, or 12, and those particular skills start at double your base level. All trained or untrained determines is the characters starting skill level. All skills can be improved as you describe. There are no "skill points" to assign so that whole section needs to be reworded.
You cannot push a natural 20. The condition gained always imposes a bane against the affected attribute and the associated skills.
In your example, all characters would roll against their Bartering skill. Being trained or untrained only effects their initial skill level during character creation.
I think that's it, hope that helps! Have fun! It's my favourite new game...
