Optionally, gamemasters may choose to cap dice pools (including
modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural
Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher.

I believe this is what the missions here use, according to the Missions FAQ http://www.shadowrun4.com/wordpress/wp-con...vised200904.pdf but is this the base skill rating or the higher specialization rating?

For instance, 3 Agility, 3 Unarmed Combat, with a specialization in Martial Arts. Is this a cap of 12 dice or a cap of 16?

It's a cap of 20, since you use the higher of the two values, but twice the sum of the natural skill and natural attribute would be 12, not 16. The specialization isn't part of the skill rating, it is a bonus to the dice pool when using that subset of the skill.

A specialization simply gives bonus dice not skill ratings, so it would be the base skill rating not counting specialization. The only problem with your example is that the cap would 20 dice.

Example:Fred has a 6 (augmented to 9) agility and a unarmed combat of 6 (+2 martial arts). His cap would be 24 dice. (Natural attribute + skill)x2 or 20 Dice which ever is higher.


Quotes

"Specializations add 2 dice to any tests made for that skill when the specialization is applicable to the test." Quoted from the SR4A book p121.

"Optionally, game masters may choose to cap dice pools (including modifiers) at 20 dice, or at twice the sum of the character’s natural Attribute + Skill ratings, whichever is higher." Quoted from the SR4A Book p61.

This is just my opinion. I am not an official for missions.
Triggvi

Does the cap on dice pool include Edge dice?

I want to so no it doesn't include edge is the cap, because edge is added to the dice pool and is not technically a modifier and you are spending a edge point for those dice. Also edge can be added after a roll. If it did, it would made highly skilled characters with edge less effective.

Thanks, so the specialization doesn't affect the cap.

Wait, it's whichever is "higher"? I read it, but I didn't really read it. So pools of 26 dice are possibly legal from the very start? The mind boggles.

If you munch'ined the character, you can get dice caps that high. An Elf with 8 charisma and 6 skill. the cap is 28 dice

As Wasabi pointed out regarding the Metagenic trait here: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=30618
It looks like the cap could potentially be...

6 base attribute
0-4 race (depending on which attribute it is and which race, variable BP cost depending on which race you pick)
6 skill

Edit: You may only pick two of the following positive qualities, because starting positive qualities are capped at 35 and they would cumulatively require 40 BP.
1 exceptional attribute (20 BP and must spend 10 more BP to raise the attribute -- p91 SR4A)
1 genetic optimization (10 BP, costs 39.2k nuyen (20% reduction from quality, still 8 BP for that nuyen) and must spend 10 more BP to raise the attribute -- p89, Au)
1 surge to further genetically optimize (10 BP and must spend 10 more BP to raise the attribute and must also take 10 points of negative surge qualities for "free" but you do get 5 more positive surge qualities for "free" as well -- p114 RC)

Total of 14 to 18, but the x2 is rounded up, so a total of 28-36 dice.

28-36 dice (depending on which attribute you're going for and which race you pick)? And that's for any attribute/skill (depending on how your race affected it). You'd have to be pulling some serious mojo to get that many modifiers... I'm not even sure that you could actually fill up your cap. But it's good to know that the sky's the limit and that you could be rolling 16 to 20 dice (with a speciality) before any modifiers are added in.

There are two ways to buy this. Either leave off the 20 BP quality (which will cost 40 karma to buy after character creation) or leave off a 10 BP quality (which will cost 20 karma to buy after character creation). The first is cheaper in the short run, the latter will eventually pay off when you make Super-whatever the best in the world at whatever it is that he does.
It only costs 123 or 133 BP (plus whatever BP you spend on race), with 800 extra nuyen to spend on whatever you want.

Edit: forgot to add the BP necessary to get the nuyen to buy the geneware -- an extra 8 BP with 800 nuyen left over.
Edit: True, humans would have a +0 to race.
Edit: I mixed up counting how many boxes of damage you have, where it's =RoundUp(8+attribute/2) and thus was adding an extra die to the total starting cap.
Edit: I forgot to check for only 35 BP in positive qualities, so only two of those uber qualities (not all three) could be taken at character creation.

Remember the bigger the dice bag you bring to the table the bigger the dice bag that may be headed your way at high speed.

Edit: forgot to add the BP necessary to get the nuyen to buy the geneware -- an extra 8 BP with 800 nuyen left over.
Edit: True, humans would have a +0 to race.
Edit: forgot that after when you x2 it all, you round up, which could give an "extra" dice, for a theoretical starting max of 39.

"after when you x2 it all, you round up" - Banaticus

Er, what does this mean?

"Total of 15 to 19, but the x2 is rounded up, so a total of 31-39 dice" - Banaticus

You seem to have added 1 for no particular reason.

Cut me do I not bleed. A characters like this would be unplayable. This character would run and hide from a 10 year old with tweezers. He would have more than one stat at 1 and almost no edge.

You know, I was thinking of /2 insted of *2, for some reason. I'll go fix that.