So anyways going to run shadow run again its been a while since I've ran it. The plan at least so far is just to make it an alternative campaign to our regular GURPS: Mass Effect game. One thing we had problems with our previous shadowrun campaign was min maxing. We basically had characters who could do well in whatever field of specialization they were suppose to do. For example the face was rolling 20+ dice. This was in a 300 bp campaign too. It was silly. Basically all the runners could throw a bunch of dice around in combat or in their area of specialization but absolutely sucked when it came to do anything outside their area of specialization. Fast forward a bit that group eventually moved on to other systems and we drifted apart. So now I have a bunch of newbies to shadowrun (and rpgs in general) and one veteran (He played in the min max group.)
So I've been trying to avoid the min maxing nightmare. So I've implemented the following houserules:
core book only SRA, to avoid power creep, all other books are subject to gm's approval depending on what advantages/equipment they are taking
To encourage people to use skills, and be able to be prepare in a number of rather then attribute maxing, they now cost 1 point less per rating to buy in BP
To encourage people not to dump CHA (Besides the face), going to use free contacts = CHA attribute X 2
To prevent over equipment dependency, the total hits limited to skill's rating x2

Anyways just to keep it simple I will run Shadowrun Missions Season 2 (Denver). Right now my worry is the veteran, and people asking to use certain books. Any advice to avoid what was happening in the other group. Any advice running shadowrun missions denver, houserules, and advice would be nice. The two archetypes that seem both really good is that have potential to abuse is the Mage (summoning spirits) and Technomancer (Or should I say dronomancer).

I'm not arguing with you that it's a problem, but you need to be able to explain WHY it's a problem so that you can convince your players not to do it.

What you seem to be doing is making rules that encourage them to game the system in specific ways but that's not really dealing with the actual problem.

It seems to me that power creep isn't your problem as much as excessive optimization. What you want to do is reduce the pressure to optimize, with three simple rules:

1) No character can start with any skill or skill group higher than 3.
2) No character can start with any piece of gear whose Availability is higher than 8.
3) No character can start with any piece of gear whose Legality is F.

This will encourage your players to spread out a little more and create more rounded characters in terms of capability. You may also want to consider using Karmagen rather than BP, since it tends to favor generalists anyway.

I disagree with rules #2 and #3.
This totally prevents a Street Sam of getting a bone lacing for instance, or even a sneak character of buying nanopaste disguise.

Just one rule for me:

1. Make a character which could exist in this world, and CAN be a shadowrunner.

It's that easy. If for example someone comes up with: I am the best sniper in the world, special forces shit blahblah: No problem, i say. But you better don't have him have strength, body and charisma on 1 and no athletics, dodge, unarmed, military knowledge and social skills and no hobbies.

Same thing for other characters. Being good, even among the best of the world isn't the problem. Not being a character is. This isn't a wargame. You do not consist of "Attack, Defense, HP, Special, Movepoints".

It sounds like you want less specialized and more well-rounded characters. The way to promote that is Karmagen - see the Runner's Companion - but you may want to do karmagen on less karma than 750 (maybe like 550). Do note two changes in the German version you should use: metatypes cost karma=bp (so 20 karma to be an ork), attributes cost 5x new rating, not 3x new rating.

Tanegar's suggestions will get you Magicrun, because they shaft street samurai and hackers so hard and leave mages mildy weakened and technomancers barely weakened.

Alternatively, depending on your group, you might do better to set a universally high standard and simply run at 4,5, or even 6 Table Rating (with TR both setting challenges and also adding dice to opposed tests) to keep the challenge appropriate.

This will also give them unplayable characters who can lose a fight to a lame ghoul.

I wouldn't say unplayable, but tactics, which are already important become more so. That said, the lowest I would restrict individual skill ratings is 4. Maximum of one at 5 is preferable, though (That said, most of my NPC's follow this, but my players are not forced to. I also employ basic tactics with everyone, which allowed a "lowly ganger" to actually hurt a Way of the Warrior Adept.

Reducing the number of points available at chargen increases optimization pressure: you have to min-max even more just to be competent at your chosen specialty. If you want to reduce optimization pressure, you have to lower the bar for "competent." If a gunbunny can be playable at 12-15 dice rather than 16-20, he has more points to spend on secondary (and maybe tertiary) capabilities. Yes, this also entails lowering the overall level of opposition. Everything's a tradeoff.

Well, if you want to see them down scale in a hurry, make all mages/adepts "latent awakening" types.

Mixed with the Skill 4, Avail 12 , no contacts above connection 3, and 300 BPs (of which up to 200 may still be stats), that will give a you a "grow into being runners" campaign.

A 400 BP, RAW campaign assumes a seasoned running team. Who are, quite naturally, exceedingly good. They aren't dead yet after all.

The hobby part is easy:
I. Like. To. Kill. Things.

You can of course just limit dice pools. Say no one ever rolls more than 15 dice, barring extra Edge dice.

Hard caps on dice pools feel arbitrarily restrictive to me. A cap on starting skills lets you start with an overall lower power curve while still giving room to grow.

Those house rules don't seem too restrictive, and are a good mix of carrot with just a bit of stick. The one thing I would change, though, is to be more specific about what things, from which books, you don't want in your game. Deciding it on a case by case basis might lead to charges of favoritism - best to be consistent.

Karmagen is really the best for "well-rounded" characters, in that it is very kind to generalists, and gives specialists just enough extra points that they don't wind up looking so lopsided. I would use the German errata (metatype BP cost in karma, Attributes bought with the x 5 multiplier), but I would use the full 750 points. If you truly feel the need to cap dice pools, it is better to do it by setting other limits, rather than restricting the overall points.

Well, did you have to do this? Read the entire webcomic in a single rush now.

Back on topic:
Do you really think your players will abuse the rules that much? Personally, I'd rather see what they're up to and then maybe correct things a little. I may sound naive, but you could put a little trust in them.
Also, trying to keep player characters low might end up in having them even get higher. This is Shadowrun, not D&D, for example. People tend to start at a higher level and don't rise that fast after that. In my opinion, they're supposed to be good at what they do. If players see this the same way, they might get into min-maxing if they feel they're lacking points. What exactly do you want from this campaign? A gang-level campaign where the guys have to work themselves up? This will probably take a lot of time.

Also, basically what Summerstorm said above. I really second that.

Skills are seriously overpriced in SR. Nobody should be dumping points into skills until they are out of characteristics they can buy. The pool counts, not the skill.

And it's really hard to pass the "reality test" given SR character generation, and particularly the inane skill table

"My character was a navy seal sniper!"
"How come he doesn't have swimming, diving, parachuting, and demolitions at expert level?"
"Umm, because that uses up all my points, skill slots and doesn't let me do anything useful?"

You have to lower the standard the dice pool for what players think is an expert, cap the pool and use GM approval to force people to make characters that do what you want. But given that you have to keep the world scaled to match.

Limiting overall points doesn't really help like you think. You have to optimize MORE at low points, so you either get highly focused characters or mush that can't do anything. Karma gen helps. 600 point characters with caps using any system will be much better rounded than a 300 point character.

Frank Trollman's house rules are also a practical approach to look at.

Talk to your players. Talk to the old min/maxer in private first. Making rules without communicating about what you want to achieve is just a kind of passive-aggressive thing that leaves people bewildered and doesn't accomplish much.

Explain to them that you don't enjoy overspecialization.

Explain that each character should be able to do a lot of stuff alone; that includes having basic social, combat and stealth skills. To sneak away from the local cops being busybodies, to scare off the local gang trying to collect protection money, and to keep the insurance salespeople from talking you into selling your soul. Or stuff like that. Just get the point across that they shouldn't cut away everything except their specialization.

Make sure to challenge people on things that aren't their specialty. Put the Sam in social situations, put the Face against a drone that can't be pornomancered.



Also, use karmagen, because it's friendlier if you want to make a well-rounded specialist. Make clear the difficulty bar will be at a reasonable level, and that they can actually afford to be good-enough-to-be-cool at their specialty, without neglecting everything else.

Ah, here we go. I hit the same hurdle building my werewolf commando for WtF. In the end, guy ended up as an ordinary soldier-paratrooper, pretty well-rounded but with no fireworks. I focused on skills a soldier would reasonably have, so of course Firearms (at 2) with Rifle specialization, Medicine at 1 with First Aid spec, Survival at 2, Stealth at 2 with Camouflage spec, Athletics at 2, Craft at 2 (you know, weapon maintenance, parachute rigging etc.), the effect is that he still can kick ass (maybe he's not as good in it as the team's Big Guy), but is also useful in other situations (for example, it's amazing how often he has to use First Aid on the rest of the team). However, I prefer creating well-rounded characters as opposed to overspecialized ones.
Also, check out my Bodyguard Adept - he's pretty much the kind of character you would want in your campaign. No Attribute higher than 4, only two skills at 4, not much rare gear. Maybe the pools are lower than your average Dumpshock member would like (9 dice on melee attack, 8 on firearms), but he's prepared for a lot of different situations (he can fight, sneak, scout the Astral, has oodles of useful knowledge on magic and corporations).

Err... no. Actually, a cap on starting pools reduces optimization pressure, and encourages more rounding-out. How people hit the cap is up to them, but a cap of 15 for starting Missions is reasonable. One the min/maxers hit the cap, they'll naturally go for breadth; the non-optimizers will know how high they should shoot for, and will push a bit more to be better.

Capping skills does nothing for capping other bonuses, such as attributes and gear. And throwing a lot more arbitrary limits into it really messes with a game. A simple dice pool cap reduces the problems immensely, and requires less house rules.

!!!This is the awnser you are looking for!!!
If you want well rounded chars, karmagen is the way to go.

You may then choose how "good" the characters should be:
500 dirty street level.
600 petty thief.
750 professional.

Because he's a Navy Seal. He's well trained and good at what he does, but being a navy seal does not require being an "expert" at swimming, diving, parachuting, and demolitions. It simply requires you to be good enough to get your part of the job done.

If you think being a Navy Seal means "expert", enjoy this season of Top Shot where the Navy Seal's performance is far below his talk.

If you want sane dice pools, suggest what you want for dice pools and cap them if the players can't take a hint.

Maybe they should set their sight on something a little less Elite then. The Skill Table works just fine. And, as Suoq indicated, a SEAL does not need Atrributes all at max, nor does he need skills above 3 at start.

I think on the one hand, the expectations of what an "Elite" dicepool looks like have been inflated. If you as GM say you consider 12-16 Elite, rather than 20-30, that leaves people some room to buy other stuff.

On the other hand, SR and some other RPGs claim that you could play stuff like a commando in them. Ex-Commando is a pretty archetypal character concept that should be doable in SR.

So by picking reasonable dice pool sizes for "competent" and "good" from the GM's size, and the player seeking balance between well-rounded and good at his niche, that ought to be possible.

SR4 has already done the work for you, though. Look at the Archtypes and any NPC. Done.
Tir Ghost Elite throws ~15 Dice in Primary Abilities. That is Elite/Best of the Best Levels.

If you players overspecialize, it is also your role as the GM to make sure that all the skills are used. If you let the players pick their fights, then the specialists are better because they will always play to their strengths. It's your job to take them out of their comfort zone. The sammy has to fast-talk his way through a security check, the healer is down and someone else has to heal him, the mage in a background count, the remote hacker against a wired security network,... Don't blame your players for specializing if it works at your table. A character with 20+ dice in his one shtick is not a problem as long as you make sure that his shtick cannot be the answer to every situation he encounters.

I have a player that likes to min/max like that. You know what? I let him. Because he digs his own grave that way.

He made this ex-spec warfare character that was an elf with dual machine pistols move by wire, smart link...You know what I'm getting at.

I asked, so you are a shadowrunner now? Response 'Yup'
Me: You do realize that you are specialized in one particular machine pistol. And you do realize that license or not carrying machine pistols aroud would garner Scrutiny from various authorities?"

Him: Yup

Me: So where are your social skills? Don't you negotiate with your johnson or do you take what ever he hands out?

Him: There are other people playing the game right? (The face always insisted on talking to the Johnson alone so that he could negotiate a stellar price for himself. And with this player's reluctance to get any skills but combat skills, the face always short changed him on his payment.)

So this player in the first game decided that he needed to be a hero in his neighborhood. 6 gangers harassing some people in his low rent hood. He decided to intimidate them with no skill and even worse, a 2 charisma to default to. Well the one die that he rolled ended up a 1 and the combat ensued. Gangers lost only 2 and the rest beat the living crap out of him into overflow. Good thing he had Doc Wagon platinum. They stole his gear especially his custom machine pistols that he painstakenly crafted with arsenal. Couldn't get him out of the formfitting body armor before doc wagon showed up.

The game was riddled with stuff like this from him. The rest of the players got a good laugh at his expense. But eventually he swallowed his pride and privately asked me for some design tips. Now atleast in my games he actually tries to make a decent thought out character.

I guess that I was a little long winded for what I wanted to say but sure let them make specialists like that. Just make sure that they each choose a different specialty for it to work right. I am sure that I read some where that there is an absolute dice pool limit and it was 20 after penalties and before edge. (I will try to confirm that). Because there are people that are specialists (Classic geek stereotype. Computer 6, Charisma 1, Social skills-Huh?)but specialists seek specialist to cover their other bases.

The above example is how I run my game. Between runs it is very slice of life. I encourage my players to experience the world around them. They meet people along the way that can help them and they know that they can score bonus karma doing it too. But they also know that they may need some skills to accomplish it too. So they try to make more rounded people. Even if it is just putting 1 into a skill. Atleast it gives them a chance.

P.S.: Oh yeah, remember that you are the GM and you always have more toys than the players to use. Don't be afraid to use them.

Actually, it's been my experience that if you want horrendously overpowered, min/maxed, twiddled-to-death characters, karmagen is the way to go. It took me days to complete my last karmagen character. Longhand didn't help, and I was going without the German errata, but still: I ended up with a working mage with Spellcasting 6, Drain stat (Intuition) at 5+, and a Magic and Edge of 6+. Karmagen just means you have to work harder for greater rewards.

the way i go about this in my games is as follows:

1) Karmagen: 750 (which is generous)
2) Availability is still 12
3) No "F" legality unless you have a contact that can reasonably get you that item.
4) Capping starting skills would be a good idea (one i didn't think about,.. but haven't needed to cause my players aren't Douches)

Wow. I can't believe he actually was able to throw a dice. By that description, he would be at a -6 penalty, using the Social modifiers table. The fact that he got his ass beaten would be awesome, though.

The absolute dicepool max is an optional rule, one I don't use, but I also have never played with anyone that had 20+ dice in anything other then DR (and that was a troll metavariant). The current hacker gets close, as does the mage when she is able to bring her Spellcasting focus to bear (logic 2 and mostly sustained spells does not make for great flexibility from her).

This I agree with completely. If I figure the campaign will last, I even start doing news articles they can take ideas from or look into themselves. I had one player go looking for a stray cat to take home as a pet, and rewarded him with an easy fight and a chance to get a few bucks on the side (Gabriel hound).


Oh yes. Especially when they make sense. in my current evolving setting, the Bloods gang is getting more combative and defensive, and might gain other skills in time at low ratings, as two runner groups have cut into their profit activities. The first time, they were a bunch of ragtag idiots. The second, they had slightly better armour, forced ware from the head guy, and were doing cram. The results: Both times they rescued the person. The first time, the Head of the gang was sent to the hospital. The second time, the runner's almost didn't get away. (the phys ad took 10 boxes of physical before the fight was over, and the mage was inpained as well.)

I've never seen a SR4.5 game without at least someone with 20+ dice in their specialty, and usually more. Since I started capping the pools directly, I've had less of an issue. Skills are already capped anyway, so they're not that big of a deal.

No one at our table has 20+ Dice in any skill at all, let alone a Specialty. Nor have they for many, many years. So anecdotally, you know have.

Well, no one at my table's generally soft caps many skills or attributes, even in the specialty. The phys ad at my table right now has insane reaction, though, but almost nothing in dodge or gymnastics

Karmagen before the German errata was definitely not balanced at all compared to build points. It created very powerful characters. On the flip side, there was a lot less pressure to min-max just to be effective, and you could create quirky characters that wouldn't be practical under a less generous character creation system. Definitely not the system to use if your player is a munchkin, though.

The German errata version is more balanced, although it still usually creates more powerful characters than what you could get with 400 build points.


On the subject of high dice pools - they don't always have to be accompanied by glaring weaknesses or lopsided character capabilities. I have found that usually those symptoms are more likely to happen with newer players. A better-designed character can easily have 20 dice to shoot things, and still be fine at sneaking, social skills, etc.

This might be true, but most characters have those weaknesses somewhere. I generally make it so that most characters need a few ranks in a few general use skills/B&E skills in order to be really workable. Anyone who is at a meet, or any social encounter, needs a few ranks in certain skills, or a decent charisma, in order to not completely screw things, even if they don't talk. Perception is defenitely useful, we all know, and recently a Mage PC found out just how useful, by dropping the other PC in front of some gangers who blew the entire mission by firing one shot, resulting in both PC's getting shot, multiple times, and one almost getting beat to death. After an incredible DR test to resist 7 boxes (he had 8 dice, and no edge left before the test), he had 10 of 10 boxes filled as a result of the screw up. Yes, he managed to get away, barely.

@Glyph
Yes, you may need to tweak it bit. Reintroduce the free knowledge Points (log+Int)*6 Karma.
Reduce the amount of karma from 750 to 650 and you get out about the powerlevel of BP.
@HunterHerne
Going about it like that with the BP-system creates a fucked up character. You just need to look at him.

Lets talk about a mage.
You need the drain stats at least 5/5, 7/5 if we are talking abount an elf.
Now lets take a look at the skills.
Well, you need spellcasting, counterspelling and summoning. Binding is strongly suggested.
It stands to reason, if it is a good choice to just take the skillgroups up to 4.
Now, it is mostly a good Idea to open a second line of ability.
The biotech group is kind of mighty for a logic tradition or the influance group for a charisma based tradition.
Now, all you need to add is perception 4 and assensing 4.
(And naturally soft maxes attributes.)
If you have some space left, it might be an idea to think about a powerfocus force 4.

All those little skills, won't help.
Whats good about two dice for running or maybe 4 dices for intimidation/first aid/persuation? You won't get anywhere with those.

Well there is your problem. Emphasis hella mine.

Without the german errata, karmagen is basically
HEY! You! You should use karmagen, because your attributes cost half of what they do in BP
Your skills cost half too!
Even the specializations!
Sure, skill groups cost about same, but you have twice the points!
Oh yeah and your metatype is free!
And maxing out an attribute doesn't cost an arm and a leg extra!
Now you have epic shittons of extra points to cover the basics AND min max!

I can pretty much guarantee you that if you applied the same effective changed that karmagen brings to BP gen, you would end up with an even worse monster than Broken Edition karmagen creates. Seriously. Free metatype, half off stats(i think its .6 of what it should be in RAW karma, actually), and no hardcap penalty alone would free up at least a hundred points for most characters in BP.

Remember that thread where dumpshock made characters in BP, and converted them to karmagen, determining what it would have cost under that system in an attempt to compare them? I think the highest was a super-body 400bp minotaur, coming out to around 1400-1500 karma.

The problem with unerrata'd karmagen is that while karmagen DOES make higher rated things proportionally more expensive ..... you have enough points saved on attributes that it really doesn't matter.

Why?



Not bad, but not absolutely necessary either. 3's in some of those skills (maybe even a couple of 2's) will still make a viable character for the world as presented in the book.



Again, Why?



Absolutely unnecessary



I disagree. You are assuming that the relevant stats are minimized. I do not make that assumption. A Couple of skills at 2, and some stats at 3 gives 5 Dice. Bonuses can acrue from there for ware, equipment, spells, or whatever.

Any character can, and should, have some weaknesses.

My overall philosophy when designing a character is that he gets hired by being really good at something, but he also needs to be someone who has plausibly functioned in the game world long enough to get that reputation. Some skills are nearly essential for any character, such as etiquette and perception. And there are a lot of others that are very useful to have, such as infiltration and computer (which essentially covers the operation of nearly any electronic device). But I assign weight to both goals. If my sniper is mediocre to average at sniping, I have failed. If my sniper can't sneak up on someone, spot an ambush, or use pistols or his fists when he isn't sniping - then I have also failed.

The reason karmagen encourages more balanced characters is that it rewards you more for being less specialized. For example, in BP-gen, an elf face who goes from 7 to 6 charisma only frees up 10 bp - enough to buy a single skill group at 1 or 2.5 skills at 1 for more versatility - and they get punished for it later, because buying that Charisma with karma costs 35 karma, but buying the skill group later at 1 costs only 10 karma.

In karmagen, on the other hand, the face frees up a full 35 points by starting with 1 less charisma, and that's enough to actually pick up some serious versatility - he could go from not knowing how to fight at all to being passable in a firefight, for example.

She does have her Charisma tradition, Cha 5 Will 5. She maxed her magic and spellcasting. No summoning, instead went with some combat skills (unarmed, Blades, firearms group). Assensing 3, no perception. Low counterspell. Dodge. some Athletics group. No Influence group, or other charisma skills. Power focus 4. 3 sus foci, spellcasting (combat) focus 5. Nartaki (for some gods awful reason she wanted 6 arms to wield Nodachis). Decent physical stats (3 and 4)'s. Int and Logic 2. I don't agree with it, because she made some awful oversights as far as fitting in to the world, but it's better then the twinking you are trying trying to do (kind of).

As for intimidation, I have a long standing NPC who is all full of persuasion, and had her and the Phys ad shaking in their boots before the fight began, and it got worse from there. First aid, would come in useful, since she was at 5 boxes and the phys ad was at 10 by the time the fight finished, with them on the losing side. Persuasion, possibly could have averted the fight to start with.

I disagree. Simply building a character to not have weaknesses is a fine way to build a shadowrunner. Such a character can accompany/assist other runner's on many tasks, being a backup and not being bored without ever stealing the show.

http://fairlygoodpractices.com/shadowrun/generic.htm is my current Generic 400 BP non-mage. The goals were to not have weaknesses (other than not being a mage) and to have no disadvantages. My plan is to create a few archtypes along those lines (Missions Legal, 400 BP, No disadvantages), but I wanted to make a character new players could use with very little instruction and participate in whatever the mission had to offer. To get them to be able to participate as much as possible, even if it;s only assisting another player, the lack of weaknesses is pretty much a necessity.

Characters have weaknesses because character creation uses a finite number of points. You can minimize your weaknesses, but you will have them, by omission if nothing else. Specialists will function less well outside of their specialty. Generalists will not be as good as a specialist, in whatever they are doing.

No character can be great at everything. So, in relation to the other characters, someone will always have weaknesses. Shadowrun is a team game, however, and so having enough to cover your own butt is all you need: you can not, and should not, try to outface the Face, or out-tech the Decker. Instead, have enough to function in those areas, and rely on technology or friends (or both) for when you need more. For example, you can use an agent to handle your Matrix stuff, and emotoys to help with social tests.

The only weakness you can't cover is magic: if you're not a mage, there's only so much you can do to help against magic. That's why you always need a mage on your team, to cover that area. But otherwise, unless you completely dumpstat Will, you won't be any worse off against magic in relation to the mundanes, and weaker in relation to someone with Counterspelling and spirits with magical Guard.

Thanks for all who replied! So it seems according to you guys the best way to avoid min maxing is to do the karma based gen using the german base errata I will look into that. I like what some of the posters posted about realistic backgrounds. To do this I should probably have them read the intro to shadowrun. Since I'm the only guy with the book at the moment (aside from the veteran who has purchased all the e-books). I'll try to have them read the intro chapter. Is there anywhere only that describes the shadowrun setting in character posted online? Otherwise not everyone will probably get a chance to read the intro to help them develop a story. I've also noticed low point characters just encourages overspecialization. Just as a clarification I dont mind characters throwing huge dice pools around but I hate it because often characters that do that often are the characters like Emeraldknite described.

Communication > Character Creation Rules.

When in doubt, talk to your players and chat with them while they're working on their characters. Give 'em an idea of what your concerns are, and keep up a conversation while they're giving themselves their gear and stuff. It'll all work out.

When all else fails, always remember: Squirt Bottle and Rolled-up Newspaper. The Sunday Edition if they're really bad.

And sometimes as a Game Master you may have to have a out of game, private conversation with a player to remind them of this. I've had the "dude stop being an obnoxious dick" conversation a few times, and sometimes dude doesn't realize he's even doing it. People underestimate how important communication can be between a GM and the players can be.

The problem I have with a global dice-pool cap is that it's false simplicity, because not all dice are created equal. 15 dice in Automotive Mechanic is nigh-unbeatable. You might be able to get a few more, but it's going to be difficult and expensive. 15 dice in a combat skill is decent, but not stellar. It's about the minimum expected of a combat-focused character. 15 dice in First Aid is merely adequate. It'll get you five hits with a reasonable degree of reliability, of which you lose two to the threshold, and Deus help you if you roll poorly. Sure, that global cap is simple up front, but you end up with a lot more work on the back end to normalize everybody to roughly equal levels of effectiveness.

Okay, let's start from the very beginning.
A shadowrunner party (or rather troupe, I'd say, minding the typical quality setups) has need for a wide arrange of skillsets, and all of those on high level - at least high enough to be able to overcome a competent opposition. Since no character can possibly have all of those skillsets at 400BP, characters specialize, and that creates the necessity for forming the troupe. That's the very basic mechanic that the rest of the gameplay is built upon (and it's also a very good reason for PCs not to shoot each other).
Now, by putting limits on how much your PCs might specialize, you simultaneously lower their ability as a troupe, and the necessity to stay one, as well. Both of those, I see no good reason to do.
Yes, that means, most challenges your runners can overcome. That is by design. The trick is having the right specialist at the right place in the right time - which is what shadowrun troupe tactics is all about.
tl;dr: don't limit your characters' options, put them into situations that'd require either smart planning or using the skills they're not good at, or just make using their good skills feel rewarding and fun.

In my experience, this isn't true. If the players have less dice in their primary skillsets but more dice in their secondary skillsets or more secondary skillsets, then the rules on assisting allow for the same effective dice pools.

My experience is "Specialists operate as individuals, either doing tasks solo or doing nothing. Generalists operate as teams, assisting and handing tasks off to each other."

Without the assist rules, yes, specialists have a large advantage over generalists.