Not really, since 2 negative options are manditory ...
And once you have positive options on the list, the Threshold also becomes relevant for the TN of the surgical test itself ...

So although it's called "Threahold", it's also a TN modifier for the test itself ...
But how does it affect the Surgery Test?
P. 146 isn't too informative there, since it says: base TN according to surgery type, options are listed on p. 148 (including the sentecne that brought us to p. 146) and that any TN modifier from the Surgery Table (also p. 146) applies.

But there's one more point to look at:

Now this is interesting, since this means that the actual Threshold modifier only comes into play, once the option in question is reached on the procedural list.

A little example here:

Let's say, we implant an alpha smartlink in an alpha clinic with rating of 7 (slightly better than the normal alpha clinic) and our doctor has a skill of 7 as well => we can have up to seven positive options on our procedure list but we'll only try to have 5.

Let's asume a Base TN of:
4 install cyberware
+ 1 alphaware
- 1 Medical shop / clinic
---------------------------
4 *I know it could be better, but it's just an example, so let's keep it simple*

Now we'll have our procedure list with:
* Essence Cost (negative 1)
* Fragility (negative 2)
* Nanosurgery (Thres +2, option 1)
* Redundancy (Thres +2, option 2)
* Essence Reduction (Thres +2, option 3)
* Essence Reduction (Thres +2, option 4)
* Essence Reduction (Thres +2, option 5)


Now our surgeon does his test with 7 skill dice + 7 from the gear he uses as complementary dice.

Now let's assume he end's up rolling the following results:

Skill: 1,2,2,3,4,5,6
Complementary dice: 2,2,3,4,4,4,4

Now we have to go down the list ...
1st success .. check ..
2st success .. check .. negative option 1 avoided
3rd success .. check ... negative option 2 avoided, break even
4th success? 1st positive Option has just raised Threshold and TN for success by 2. Is there a six under those successes? Yes => positive option 1 achieved
5th success? 2nd positive Option has just raised Threshold and TN for success by another +2. Is there an eight under those successes? No => Option not achieved. Options further down the list cannot be achieved, end of procedure.

But there's a catch:
Let's change the dice roll to

Skill: 1,2,4,4,5,5,6
Complementary dice: 2,2,3,4,4,8,14

We go down the list again ...
1st success .. check ..
2st success .. check .. negative option 1 avoided
3rd success .. check ... negative option 2 avoided, break even
4th success? 1st positive Option raised Threshold and TN for success by 2. We do have one success with a result of 6 or higher => 1st positive option achieved
5th success? 2nd positive option raised Threshold by +2 to 8. Do we have a success of 8 and higher? Yes, the two last successes in the complementary dice have a combined value gretaer equal 8 => 2nd positive option achieved.
6th success? 3rd positive option raised Threshold and TN by another +2.

This is the point where the actual debate starts. The 14 with the complementary dice would suffice to achieve all options, since it is high enough to meet top value of Threshold modifieres in total, provided that the test has a total of 8 successes. We do have a total of 7 successes against the base surgery TN of 4. Thus most people (and from what I gather you and Sphynx do count in there) would now assume that's enough to achieve four of the five positive options, but accoding to p. 148 (see first quote ) the Threshold also applies as TN modifier for the Surgey Test itself.
Now that would mean that the surgeon only scored successes against TNs of 4,6 and 8 (since the 14 was used to generate the needed success against TN 8 after 2nd positive option was achieved) and the remaining successes (one 5 from skill and the two 4s on complementary dice) aren't actually successes and thus are lost => Ending the surgyery with only 2 positive options achieved ...

*Drek, whenever that discussion arises, it get extremly complicated*

Actually it simply creates the need for an errata of some sorts. Which one has to be determined ...

Never doubted that, I just said that options are not irrelevant, since at two negative ones are on the procedure list.

Not quite, such a clinic must be nano-equipped .. That's why I used an alpha clinic with a rating of 7 (which is higher than 6 which would equal a normal nano-equipped clinic)

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Yet it still says that it adds to the Target Number and not just the Threshold.
So it doesn't only imply so, but it actually says so ... As complicated and debatable the whole issue get's due to that ...

I'm perfectly aware what an open ended test is. But the part about adding to the TN of the Surgical Test is not negated by that, since open ended tests do not have a Target Number in the first place ...

Could you quote where it actually does say so?

Exactly what I was getting at. It's a GM call until someone makes it clear what's going on there. Right now it looks like you get hit with the threshold twice, once as part of the base TN and again as you see which options worked. While I'm not saying that's not the way it could work, it isn't a 100% definite thing from the text (because of the ways you can interpret the statement).

The threshold (not the negative options) is irrelevant for surgery which doesn't include positive options. Which was my original point. Most people couldn't care less about most positive surgical options (essence slot being a noted exception). Negative options even really use the threshold, since the threshold for them is the same as the base surgery TN. If you don't hit that, the surgery didn't work at all.

Actually, do you have a page number for that? I know that Nano-surgery appears on the finding a provider charts, but I haven't seen anything more specific. I'm probably just overlooking it, though.

Fine, although I have my doubts about your prefered solution not being open to possibilities of exploiting it heavily ... *I can think of at least one ...*

There isn't much more. The surgery option demands the capability of performing that type of surgery.
The medical rating table on p. 144 says that Providers capable of doing jobs involving Nanoware have a base rating of 6. So any clinic of a similar rating could be considered to be able to perform nanosurgery.
Yet since the word nanosurgery doesn't turn up anywhere else in particular, it's again more or less up to the GM to decide if the clinic will be able to perform that type of surgery ... And since even basic bone-lacing involves nanites during the process according to the description of these cyberware items you could argue that any clinic that does cyberimplant shoudl be able to perform nano-surgery ...

Yeah, the one on page 148 that says that the increase in TN is for the Threshold Modifier which on page 144 is described as an Open Ended Test.

Sphynx

But it doesn't say so there (nor on p. 144 or 146) ...

It says: .. which increases the target number for the Surgery Test (see Surgcial Test, p. 146)

And page 146 specifically deals with teh surgical test and it's modifiers but does nowhere speak of the open ended test that's mentioned on p. 144.

And when we look at p. 144 we do find that there is the TN for the surgical test and the part about open ended test.
Unfortunately an open ended test does not have a target number, so the Thresholdmodifier cannot modify a target number for an open ended test of any sorts

I wasn't originally looking for holes either ... It just turned out that way, while trying to understand those rules

Yes, it does. Although my example above worked on a dynamic increase of TN during the test itself, which is a slight difference to what you describe at the end of the post I'm currently quoting

One question there: Does your character do surgery on his own? ... Usually that's the job of an NPC medic ...

Nope, my example had a dynamically increasing TN upon reaching the next position on the procedure list ... Slight difference there (but still some sort of interpretation of a wording that needs errata sooner or later), since I do actually modify the surgery TN during the course of surgery ...

Huh? How many times are you rolling the dice? Once per level or one time total? A "dynamic increase of TN" sounds very much like the sliding Threshold on the open test (or you're rolling once for each TN). What you describe is no different than the system I was describing originally (base TN = some number without thresholds, then use the open test to determine whether options work or not).

There's no reason a PC can't perform surgery as well as an NPC. There are all sorts of reasons why you'd have the skills but no practice or license. That particular character doesn't practice medicine anymore because he feels he violated his Hippocratic oath for avenging himself on someone who wronged him in a messy and fatal maner (and he's been having some racism issues, too, which have made him frustrated with the profession). He might occasionally do some doctoring for a teammate, but besides that he falls onto other skills for his income.

Re-read both examples and you'll note the difference ... Espcially the second example. With your interpretation the doctor would have succeeded to implement 4 of 5 positive options, while with my "dynamic" version only 2 were achieved.
And I still only roll dice once ...

Sure, but I'm still not considering the biotech 6 character being the standard runner That's why I asked ...

That's the explanation I was looking for. You have a particular character capable of performing surgery of that type.

Sort of. I'm marking off the "used" successes against each TN raised through an option while going down the list.

Yes ...

It increases the TN for the surgery test as per p. 148, but modifies Threshold as you go down the procedure list (as per p. 144).

As I said before: It's an interpretation of something that seems to be in dire need of an errata.

The reason why I'm going with this vesion (this now concerning only my games!), is the fact that it doesn't allow some insane stunts I've seen with the interpretation you and Sphynx presented , does actually influence the TN (not just Threshold *which is odd for an open ended test anyway*), yet doesn't drive the base TN onto insane levels when using positive options the way you pointed out in one of your earlier postings ...

~shrugs~

"Surprisingly" enough that's yet another M&M rule ...

However, in this case it's now an open test combined with a normal success test, it's a single success test against two different TNs with two potential outcomes, since it doesn't say "open test".
It even says "as if it were a Success Test, with a target number equal to the number of damage boxes inflicted."

I'm just dealing with the rules as written ... no more, no less ...

And it wouldn't be the first time that something was forgotten on a chart (or still was on one of them although the corrosponding system didn't make it through the design process).

With the remaining problem that open tests do not have a target number. So now it's not only my "reading too much" in one line on p. 148 but also "my reading too much" into a second one that uses the wrong description for a test I guess?!.

a) I cannot look into the minds of the makers => Speculating about intent is pretty hard.
b) The overall picture to me simply says: Need Errata

Isn't the Target Number for a Perception Test (which is an Open Ended Test) the result of someone else's Stealth Test (another Open Ended Test)?

A case can be made that Open Ended Tests can indeed have a TN. In the case of Positive Options, the TN is variable, depending on the Threshold of each individual option.

A perception test is a success test, not an open-ended test (you get more info for multiple successes, etc). The TN for the success test is set by an open ended test

My view on the ways to read the rules. Either the Threshold modifiers affect the TN or they don't. There is nothing in the rules to indicate that the TN for the surgery test gets higher as the Threshold increases. Take the following case:

Surgical roll: 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5
Base TN: 2
Positive option 1 (+1 threshold)
Positive option 2 (+1 threshold)
Positive option 3 (+2 threshold)

Okay, there are three views being bandied about. One I share with Sphynx (case 1), one I hold is the most likely reading if you incorporate threshold modifiers in the TN (case 2), and the dynamicly increasing TN (case 3).

Case 1:

Surgery succeeds and the first two options are gained. The surgery roll is against TN 2, and then the high die is compared to each threshold down the options list till it fails.

Case 2:

Surgery fails (TN 6 for the test after threshold mods, no successes). The surgeon was attempting to do too much and messed up the surgery pretty badly.

Case 3:

Surgery succeds and the first option is gained. The surgery roll is against TN 2, and then you count down successes on the chart, adding the threshold modifier to the TN at each step and having successes "fall out" as the TN rises.

While case 3 looks attractive, I can't find a way to read the rules as written that lead me to believe it's how it works. Case 1 is the case I'd like to have, seeing as it appears to be the cleanest of the three, though case 2 seems to be the best fit for the rules as written (if you take that there are no mistakes in them).