I was thinking of allowing people to use half the dice from knowledge skills and apply them to relevent tests. The balancing factor will be that no knowledge skill can be above Logic, and one can only apply logic/2 (round up) knowledge skills to any test.

Suggestions?

Suggestions? Sure!

Id's say an "added dice" cap on each test might be order. Like no more than 4 dice.

And knowsofts don't count or only add a max of (EDIT) 1 die or something.

Maybe a simple action for each knowledge skill that you're using? It would be like psychological aiming.

I have to say, whenever I see an emo samurai thread that goes "Making X awesome" a big red light and alarm go off in my head.
However, I definitely agree that there should be a way for appropriate knowledge skills to help out with certain tasks. However, that way is a minefield of abuse and brokenness.

The only fear I have is that it will slow the game down with rolls to make for more dice for the actual test roll. Sure, once or twice is okay, but if it's really prevalent, it could slow the game down when you factor in the people having to look up the rules again for the different skills and if that skill is relevant or not, etc...

I tend to just let people add dice equal to the relevant skill (NOT skill + stat) rating if it's a fairly specific skill, or half the relevant skill rating if it's a fairly general skill. A few extra dice here and there never hurt anyone.

You could model it on the teamwork test, where the complimentary skill is the PC teaming up with him/herself on the main test.

We tried the teamwork-like bonuses from knowledge skills and it got horrendous. I suggest capping those teamwork bonuses at +3 or +2 dice, like most bonuses are.

The last game I was in modeled complementary skill bonuses off of the Teamwork rules and it worked really well for us.

My characters we're rolling 20ish dice to see hidden cameras. That is what I meant by horrendous. Plus it slowed things down when they counted out their huge dice pools.

How about this, then.

At the GM's discression a character may the dice from any approperiate knowledge skill to an extended test. A knowledge skill may only be added once per extended test and only one knowledge skill may be added per roll. In the case of extended tests that require multiple rolls, multiple knowledge skills may be used.

This rule may only be applied to extended tests. It may not be applied to any other type of test.

I dunno, I kinda like knowledge skills as they are - not hugely important to the "efficiency" of the character, rather as a way of fleshing out your characters background.

I don't want to see everyone taking "Security Systems 6, Ballistics 6" instead of cool stuff like "Thrash Metal 6" and things like that.

I'd only allow this idea for very specific situatuions.... chemistry knowledge when mixing up batches of explosives, or certain legwork situations. Generally things that aqre extended tests. I suppose that knowledge of security systems might allow yo0u to better be abl;e to sot hidden cameras, but it seems like a game buster to me.

I would just use the teamwork rules and simplify it with automatic successes. So every 4 Dice gives you +1 Die for the relevant test. I would also suggest not including the attribute for the "teamwork test", particularly if this would result in Logic being used twice.

Limiting it to extended tests kills the horror that is Balistics 6. However, Troll Thrash Metal Bands 6 can be very useful if the runners interact with the underground music industry. Remember, the Rock Star character from Shadowbeat had a smartlink and some other combat 'ware. Rocking can be dangerous in 2070.

Using knowledge skills would be nice, but I agree that only in specific situations.

Maybe someone with security systems could use it to look at a set of plans and guess where cameras, etc are likely to be. Certainly not much that provides direct dice in a fight since that would make the skill active. On the other hand the security systems example could give maybe a small dice bonus to spot cameras depending on how they did with the test, because he/she had plotted where the cameras were likely to be. Equally they could lay this over the team's AR and give the whole team the bonus, maybe one colour on a plan for suspected and another for confirmed.