Well, being able to load up on modifiers certinly means those extra dice come in handy. If nothing else, the Edge of 8 can lead to abuses of the Longshot test, as I've amply proven. But you're right that we probably agree more than not; I just *enjoy* splitting hairs in an online debate.

I'm kind of with Whipstich, not because I have an aversion to overkill, but because the price rises so suddenly and steeply for hard-maxing. Usually it's not worth it for those last few dice.

My gunslinging adept (an elven adept with maxed-out pistols skill) is a good example. Despite being primarily a number-crunching exercise, he demonstrates that even hyper-specialists can be playable.

So what's the advantage of soft-maxing? If I dropped his Agility from 10 to 8, and his pistols skill from 7 to 6, losing the necessary positive qualitites along with it, then I would get 73 points back to shore him up in other areas. This version would have a broader range of skills, and still be tossing 21 dice for his pistols skill.

Im not sure if this is off base, but ive seen several types of characters; its even hard to narrow it down totally.

Hyper-specialists. These are the guys that basically twink out one, MAYBE two skills to be as high as humanly possible; between the skill, the attribute, and everything. However, they pay a heavy price for this; by having very low of everything else, if not even relying on skillsofts the rest of the way. This is the one that pushes things like Exceptional Attribute(something), Aptitude(something), with specialization(something), and any piece of ware that can possibly squeeze every last die out of one or two skills.

Specialists. While it's pretty apparent where their strong points lie, they still have a smattering of other stuff. It's not high, but it's there. They aren't quite considered generalists, however, as there are things they can't do, they lack the breadth of skills a generalist does, but they also throw a healthy handful of dice for their main attractions, if you will. (I dont count someone who purchases every skillsoft a generalist, btw.)
Specialists might also be strong in one area, rather than just one or two skills, like a hyper-specialist. For example, a firearm specialist might have 5's and 4s in all the firearm/heavy weapons skills with extra attention paid to Agility. However, they don't go overboard with exceptional this or aptitude that; but they are still thinner on the other skills than the Generalist.

Generalists. These guys are hard to pin down, because there are so many types. A mundane generalist might take 165 skill points-if there is one thing i notice, Generalists don't mind allocating a healthy amount to skills...since they can. While a hyper-specialist ends up paying extreme amounts to max out and top off said attributes and skills and paying BP for resources for the ware to beef them up, a more generalized character can toss all of this to more raw skill points. So, said person grabs 165 BP and uses them for skills...picking up groups for Firearms, Close Combat, Stealth, Influence, and Electronics, all at rating 3, giving them an amazing breadth(18 skills!), and rounding out a couple more skills...Dodge and Perception, with a light driving skill. A magical generalist might have Sorcery and Conjuring groups at 3, while rounding out other social, combat, technical, or a little of columns A,B, and C. Some might be more ''tech generalists'', purchasing groups at a higher rating(4, say), for Electronics and Cracking, and a helping of other Repair Skills as well. A combat generalist would snap up groups/skills at around 4/3 or so. Attribute-wise, they *tend* to be balanced(exceptions abound of course), with no glaring strengths or weaknesses. Ware can vary from alot to a little depending.

I wasn't trying to pigeonhole everyone, but it seems that many characters fall into these, or even mix them up. (The Generalized Specialist, for example, that i put above).

There's also just ''really mundane generalists'', who aren't really that good at anything, but know a tiny bit of absolutely anything.

anyhoo, i guess my point as a GM is to many any and all of these viable. If they stay within the rules, and whatever point allowment i grant(usually 400), and we all have fun, im not going to try to put a damper on it. (Honestly, i dont think many people here are, but i can understand after seeing one two many Pistoleer Adepts/Pornomancers throwing 27 dice for one skill and nothing else, it can make one a bit jaded.)

It depends a lot on how much your GM is willing to put up with characters low natural attributes, but it's perfectly possible to skimp on attributes, boost them to acceptable levels with 'ware and cyberlimbs and then increase them with karma later on while starting with a diverse array of skills. It works well with lucky characters as well since even an Expert System doesn't offer full Edge functionality. I had a character who was good enough to count as a specialized Face but also could hack; he started out with around 180 skill points and wasn't so hot in combat due to some SkillWire dependency but after some gear and about 12 points of karma there wasn't much he really couldn't do. It's also quite possible to emphasize Agility strongly and have a strong default pool in many areas as well, although many agility based skills tend to overlap in usefulness.

Hmm....im figuring out where the discussion is going. I think i even managed to confuse myself. I would like to see how said Pornomancer can get...32?! dice for Seduction and still not be gimped. However, keep in mind, im no expert at breaking SR4, ill be the first ot admit that. Neither are a few players i know. Last time i saw someone get a huge bucket of dice, it cost them rather heavily(a bunch of BPs to max the stat, a bunch of BPs to max the skill, Edge BPs(which can be offset by Flaws)...i can buy that the skills might not be gimped, but attribute-wise, if you max a stat with Exceptional Attribute, it's...75 BPs, isn't it? Thats nearly half of what you're allowed to spend. I mean, some of us at our table have rolled some heavy dice, but i think 19 or so, MAYBE one of us tossed 20, was the max. None of us managed to break into the 30s range, but i dont think we've tried yet.

Im not doubting it can be done, by any means...i just don't know all the 'tricks' that go into this. Ive seen a couple rough Pornomancer sheets, and i sort of recall them being REALLY heavy on the Cha and Social Skills(especially Seduction) with not a hell of a lot else.

I made that statement of hyperspecialists because Ive seen many hyperspecialists that fell into that trap; overspending in one area naturally cuts down points usable in others, and what im guessing the folks that did it didn't know the finer areas of point management, i guess. I was thinking the lines, if you blow 75 points on one stat...technically, that leaves you with 120 left, since you can't spend 5 on a stat. It also leaves you with 7 stats to dump into. Divided equally..5 3s and 2 2's more, which, now that i think of it, isnt bad(but isnt great either.) I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to drop 4 into pistols, with a specialization(6), plus 3(Agl), plus 2(smartlink), for 11. Hmm...perhaps it's not so hard. Im not sure how many resources said Pornomancer needs, though. Don't they have some high level Pheremones in there as well?

You can change ''heavy price'' into a ''price'' if you want. Of course, i expect a price to be paid. If you have 400 points, you can either spread them evenly or lump them up. It all comes out to 400(up to 435 with disadvantages), and in the end its all the same. A group should be a group, typically, in alot of our groups, we had the ''primary/backup'' thing going. We's have the gun guy, the fist guy, mage, face, electronics guy, but each of them would also have some backup(gun guy might also be ok at repairs, fist guy isn't totally uncharming, mage can swing a mean sword, electronics guy has a nice shotgun that he knows how to use, etc.) Works great; everyone has their time to shine, and everyone can also help out in other ways.

It comes down to incentives. I don't see much incentive in having 32 seduction dice. By my count, that's about 18 con dice that I'll probably never really need. I'd rather cut down to being merely excellent at my job and do better than "muddling through" in other areas. YMMV.

Makes sense to me. Our ''average'' dice are a bit higher than some; but usually in our big skills we run 15-16, our middle-ground are around 8-10, and the low, 4-6 or so. Occationaly we have a concept that makes an 18-19 die ''monster'', but i agree with the 32 dice. That is an awful lot. I mean, if someone REALLY wanted to play a character with 32 con dice, i suppose i could work it in if they gave me a background on it. I personally am in your boat, ive done just fine with those mentioned numbers.

Critical successes don't mean jack by the RAW. It's merely the developer's way of endorsing some player grandstanding when appropriate and as an occasional way to refresh an Edge point. I say occasional because the rules state that GMs should only do so in the event that such an unqualified success is unlikely, which is actually biased against specialists, if anything. About the only practical application of the term "critical success" is when it's used to define the result of burning Edge to succeed in a test, at which point the term may be considered to mean 4 or more net hits. As for Edge, yes, it's a great stat. But it's not the value of a high Edge stat that I question; it's the value of 6 vs. 8, and 6 is easily accomplished by a generalist.

If anything, ElFenrir, that's the fault of the conversion system than anything else. I tried converting a mage as well, and ran into the same difficulty. I tried completely rebuilding her from scratch, then adding the karma; it worked out better, but still unsatisfactory. I finally rebuilt her according to SR4 principles, and finally she seemed to work out. (This was for SRM, so I still gave up on her to play Mr. Lucky instead. Kinda regret not playing a magic character sometimes, but it all worked out OK.)

Since I actually did stat up the pornomancer on a recent thread, here it is again to satisfy people's curiosity. Obviously, since it arose from "how many dice can you get for this?", it's not going to be the most efficient build. But it's still playable, with no huge glaring weaknesses.

Ok, i see how it all works. You're right; while i wouldn't call them a 'generalist' in the terms of being a jack of all trades type, they can rule just about any social situation that they can seduce on, and have enough social skills and get enough dice from their CHA and alll the other stuff to use as a face, even if Etiquette and Negotations are lower than most faces.(they already get around 20 without the skills). Just enough pistols(9 dice with smartlink) to cover themselves, but still seems like they'd stay away from that thing.

Ok, playable, definately, balanced, in what they can do, not quite. But again, i suppose that comes with being uberhyperspecialized. (the words get longer. )

I think, if i had to pick a favorite type of character(out of the gate), i like the mid-ground, where they have their thing that they do, but a nice helping of other things they can back up on. Of course it depends on my idea at the time(sometimes i get generalist or super specialized ideas), but generally i like the balance. Again, though, pornomancer could hang in a group without getting in the way too much, as long as the GM made sure they had some things to do. I'd allow the character.