How to design a character in Eclipse Phase?

Question

I'm a bit overwhelmed with all of the options available. We haven't run a full session yet, but the two test runs I've done have both revealed glaring holes in the character I designed using the book and the popular JMobius excel sheet.

The latest discovery was that Reputation and Networking are kinda tied at the hip and one without the other is not as useful as I might have hoped.

Does anyone have guidance for:

• Where to spend the 300 CP points that do not have to go to skills
  • I know it will vary per person, but I'd like somewhere to start (get at least 3 moxie, no more than 6, Don't spend more than 5 on Reputation ... stuff like that)
• Skills
  • Must have
  • Things that go good together
  • How much do I really need in a skill? Are lower levels useful?
  • How many total skills should I aim for?
• Reputation
  • How many different reps to have?
  • Is it better to have one or two high reps, or more spread out?
• Gear
  • I'm a lifelong fantasy player, what are the equivalents of a 10' pole, torches and spikes here?
• What else should I know?

Answer 1

Custom Points

• Spend them on your morph and traits.
• Liquefy the rest into credits and Rep so that you can buy stuff
  • During the game
  • Or During Character Creation
• Use the Credits to buy some nice mods and implants.

Skills

Buy at least 20 points in a few combat skills: Kinetic/Beam/Spray/Seeker, Unarmed, and Blades (if you're going to be using those). Remember to add your aptitude score to the base, so with 0 points in a SAV-linked skill and 20 points in SAV, you would have 20 points as your total. Remember to put aptitude bonuses from your morph in the "morph bonus" column.

You must have Fray. It is your defensive skill. Have something in Free Fall if you'll be in space, or Freerunning if you'll be on the ground. Put about as much into your Networking as you'll have in your Rep category, so you can use it properly. Scrounging and Palming are good for smugglers, but Research is almost useless because your Muse will have that. The rest of the Muse's skills are in the Software section.

Reputation

This depends on your character. I use about 25~50 CP on Rep, in at least 3 categories. Again, depends on your background and definitely your faction.

Gear

I usually have a couple things from every category. Scrapper's Gel, Electronic Rope, at least a couple of nanoswarms, and some medical equipment are pretty useful. Unless you have visual enhancements, I'm pretty sure there's a flashlight.

Additional Info

If your gamemaster rolls dice without telling you, be cautious. (S)he's probably plotting something super secret, and there's no guarantee you're all prepared. Ask about the are when you enter. My party literally got away with murder while running Glory; they beat someone's head in, stole their stack, destroyed the body with superthermite, psychologically tortured them into giving info, and finally ejected the cortical stack into space. Because it was on an anarchist habitat and the person was a gang member, nothing happened and I might even have to give them a bounty.

It's probably best to have 4~6 moxie. Some EV strains require a Moxie test to avoid infection.

I think I've answered the question, but please ask for clarification if needed.

Answer 2

Personally, I would concentrate on core ego abilities and reputation/networking. Morphs will come and go, egos are what counts. Moving away from the "I have stuff" to "I have respect/ideas" is hard.

Depending on what type of game you want to run, you should focus the skills/morph/etc. If you are planning on your characters to travel from Mars to the Sun corona and back to Neptune, having a super cool morph on Luna is kinda pointless. If on the other hand, you plan to have a "unforgiven"-like game set on Mars, it would be a good idea to have a solid morph.