After reading char creation rules for the 100th time and the examples.

Lifestyle cost modifier is ONLY for lifestyle cost, not equipment costs.

I feel like an idiot.

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He opens his eyes, and stops smiling. "Unfortunately, that means that you misled us with respect to the knowledge, experience and competence of your team. This will go into our records, and our clean-up crew will negotiate payment penalties with you." He gets up from the table, leaving a certified credstick on his salad plate.

Yeah, I find it silly that a giant pays the same cost for an armored vest or pair of pants that a gnome does.

Well, strictly speaking, clothing is generally a part of lifestyle. So a Giant does pay more for his pants than a gnome.

Never saw it that way, myself. Lifestyle costs covering things like food, utilities (including fuel for whatever vehicles you might have), and matrix. Things like your wardrobe, the vehicle itself, and guns aren't. Doubt any GM I play with would agree to letting my ammo expenditures be covered by my monthly rent, even though shooting guns is frequently part of the shadowrunner's lifestyle.

Clothes, not armor/weapons/gear/etc, is explicitly something that is covered by lifestyle. For example, having a Low Lifestyle means you (generally) have a Low Lifestyle's level of clothing.

That's why the Squatter that lives out of that abandoned building is generally considered to be wearing worse clothes than that guy who lives in a High Lifestyle high-rise condo. Your every-day wear, because yes, people don't just walk around wearing just an Armored Coat, is often just subsumed by the cost of your Lifestyle.

And that's just based on Core Rulebook. If you want to expand on that, Run Faster breaks down "Fashion by Lifestyle" which is the name of the sidebar on page 217. It gives a basic run-down of what people at each level of lifestyle wears at how much it would cost to buy those clothes separately. However, it also states outright "There are certain styles of clothes that come with each lifestyle; for each month of lifestyle purchased, characters get one set of clothes."

So yes, clothes are part of lifestyle.

Funny, then, how drakes don't pay an additional 10% on their lifestyle for having adjustments to their clothing; it's just applied to the costs of their armor and clothing directly instead. Also contradictory for changelings, where Bone Spikes for modified clothing doesn't modify their lifestyle costs, yet Neoteny does (yet for being child sized apparently child sized clothing costs more).

I can understand a cost modifier for trolls based on their food consumption, but unless someone's getting a whole new wardrobe every month I find clothing being covered by lifestyle to make no sense.

It is a matter of Lifestyle includes clothing, but clothing isn't the only thing that lifestyle covers.

In the cases you mention where only gear/clothing costs are increased, the character needs to have modifications for clothing, but nothing else changes about the character's needs or habits.

For example: Bone Spikes require slight adjustments in clothing, but doesn't require any other accommodations.

The cases where Lifestyle costs are increased instead (note I say, instead, not in addition to) is when the alteration is more pervasive and includes a much larger amount of the character's life. Being significantly larger or smaller such that major things you use in your life must be altered to fit you. Those are cases where your entire lifestyle is affected, which also includes your clothing.

I can totally understand why one would say that alterations to clothing/gear should be handled as a separate cost. Personally, I think the way the Troll Lifestyle increase was handled wasn't a good way to handle the increased costs for being a Troll. But it is the way they have it handled in the rules. The implication is that the increased cost of Lifestyle is supposed to cover altering all of the things that "being a Troll" increases the cost of. Which includes clothing.

P.S.
I totally agree that a mix of the two would have been more appropriate. But I like my rules to be a little more exacting even if it makes things a little more complicated. I would have been perfectly fine with a generic +20% to the cost of gear that needs to be modified for your use and a +50% to lifestyle (or some better thought-out solution). The problem we end ups with is that you can have a Troll that doesn't end up paying anything extra for their metatype (or very little) because they live a Squatter or Street Lifestyle and then buys tons of other gear to supplement things. And on the other hand you can have a troll that lives a very simplistic life at even a Middle Lifestyle, doesn't need to modify any gear, but they're paying out the nose in extra lifestyle costs.

Wait, just out of curiosity, I'm not familiar with 5th edition, but did they really put a supplement on lifestyle for big characters? Is there still a cost for modifying gear for a dwarf or a troll?

They removed the cost to modify gear to dwarf/troll size. It was rolled into an "all-encompassing" lifestyle cost modifier instead. The only instance I can think of where they still have a cost for modifying a piece of gear to fit a particular metatype is in Rigger 5.0 for a vehicle modification "Metatype Adjustment." At my table, that modification is primarily used to specifically install the modification after-market, if you are buying a vehicle through normal channels, it can be requested for whatever metatype you want at no additional cost.

For the record: Trolls pay +100% for lifestyles, while Dwarfs pay +20%.

100% for trolls?

What's wrong with those people!?

I kind of think the old method made much more sense… Lifestyle shouldn't vary that much… Especially when you reach middle, high or luxury…

We have too much material to cover, and too little bandwidth to utilize to cover it all in a meaningful way.

And maybe it was a bit more work, but I too think the old methods made more sense, and not just in lifestyles. Much of which has already been covered in at least one thread or another in this forum alone.