I second Codebreaker's recommendation. I haven't used the book's chargen method for so long, I honestly can't remember how to do it. Use his spreadsheet. Yes, chargen sucks in EP. MOST of the sample characters are well-balanced, but a few are definitely not (the DA Mercenary shows how overpowering starting characters can be, and the poor octomorph scavenger is just useless). I also let my players tweak their characters for a few missions afterwards for no penalty.

I'd like to know how many CP you give your players for starting their characters. The book proposes 1000cp but i really can't believe it, we started with 800 and we were killing-machines, with lots of 60+ abilities and knowledges, best morphs (like remades), full of gear and all the rest. I suppose a 700 (considered the limit of 300+400 lowred to 275+375) should be enough. And you still can use negative traits to buy your Fury!

At character creation, the skill cap is 80. However, raising skills higher than 60 costs 2 CP per skill point. The "Expert" trait allows you to raise a single skill to 90 during character creation. You still have to pay for those skill points. A specialization allows you to a treat a skill as ten higher for 5 points, but only for that specific specialization.

When you create a new character, first thing first, write his background, it'll give you the backbone to the crunch part. That done, on a spare paper, write the concept of your characte, then what should somebody with that occupation should posses to strive, or at least survive, and the Big Mendatories, as I call them -Perception, Research, Fray and Networking. depending of his concept his score could vary a lot especially if he requires several skills with above average score people with skills above 55 aren't the average joe. They are specialist, chief etc 70 are doctorate level, more or less 80 are professors, renown searchers etc. Lt Commander Ashley Williams would have kinetic weapons at 80~85 90...is borderline posthuman in effectiveness Some one like the Mentalist would have 90 in kinesics, for example. And Garrus Vakarian would have Kinetic Weapon at 85~90 Don't think in terms of number, at first write the skills your character need, and how good he needs to be then writes what he studied (Academics), or probably learned on the field (Profession) and finally what he likes (Interest) when you get that done, give the score accrding to the adjective you gave this or that skill, and dot the skills you need. Don't worry about the requistes, you can always fix that later if needed be Look at the attached attribute to the skill you dotted, they'll give you the one to pay much mind to when dealing out the Free Points. But sacrifice might be necerarry, or CP could be spent after this step, but attribute extra point has a steep price, CP wise, and stuff you need to get with those points might be rendered unpurchasable (if that's actually a word) because you spend too much in Attribute boost copy the bases score in the corresponding skills that you dotted, that's this less points you need to pay to reach the desired level of competence. Keep track of the points spent and where they were spent. Then think about the Rep score.the Free points in rep gave you the bases, who you are. the CP in rep is what you did and do. the favors you owe and what others owe to you. Now, get the core gear needed by your character's concept. Also start to think to a morph, but don't buy it yet. Write it down on your spare paper and how much CP it cost do the balance of the CP spent, and the amount of Active and Knowledge skills. You have the core of your character, now flesh it up with additional skills, gear and trait roughly, it should take you between 45 minutes and a hour, after you get your background written

I'd recommand you to create several characters by yourself 1. it gives you a certain 'mailage' and you become more and more familiar with the creation system 2. it makes a good stack of pre-gen characters occasional players can pick up create them by themes, by settings explore, do the Scum thing and be crazy make tough character to create, like uplift, AGI, asyncs They'll be good exotic NPCs. One of them that I create always walk with a fork of his Async Lost sister ghost-riding a swarm cat. reminds you of somebody? sadly the file was lost in a HDD crash last year. After a few, it'll start becoming really fun as you can explore deeper in the creation system, and see what makes it thick, adapt character from movies, series, anime etc with real ease The toughest part, I'll admit, is the derivated attritube like DR, LUC,TT, WT, INIT etc soon enough they become reflexive. You write your WIL, and right away calculate the Luc, IR, and TT Ditto with the morph. Once you get the DUR, the rest just flows at the back of the corebook you have all the tables