What do you want, an average value or a good value?

On a more serious note, here's how the world of (un)organized crime works in SR4:

A bunch of bar patrons, Cthulhu cultists, or villagers turned against you by sweat words or magic spells roll 4 dice.

Some gangers in the alley roll 5 dice.

When a named character walks into the room with a bunch of mooks in matching outfits, all those mooks roll 6 dice.

The Cops roll 7 dice.

Soldiers and generic military personel roll 8 dice.

Hit Squads sent by the local mob boss roll 9 dice.

When the hit squad has a name, "The Lucky Cricket Benevolence Society" for example, the members of that hit squad roll 10 dice.

Special Forces units roll 10 dice plus the number of adjectives used to describe them. So the Red Samurai are "elite" and "honorable", so they roll 12 dice. The Tir Tairngire Ghosts are "stealthy" and "masterful" and "legendary" - so they roll 13 dice. The Asamundo Nightwatch is "hard-boiled", "terrifying", "efficient", and "cannibalistic", so they roll 14 dice.

The most memorable and interesting member of any of these teams rolls 1-6 more dice than that, so you could potentially be up against a Tir Ghost Team where the team's Bard was throwing like 19 dice at you, or an Asamundo Nightwatch Team where their Blind Lazer Sniper was throwing as many as 20.

The thing about these groups is that they almost always roll that many dice on just about everything important that they do. So a group of CAS border guards is going to be rolling 8 dice regardless of whether they are using an assault rifle or a grenade launcher or a heavy machine gun. A Tir Ghost is going to be rolling 12 dice with a sniper rifle or a monowire. So just because you can make a charcater that can come up with 15 dice on some activity doesn't mean that you are Red Samurai or Nightwatch material - a starting charcater just doesn't have the depth to have what they need for that kind of environment.

A starting character is probably going to be about as good overall as a Professional Rating 3 Grunt. Which means that you should strive to roll 9 dice in several tasks and 12 dice in at least one.

-Frank

Yep. Your GM actually seems to want below-average characters, not average ones. (much below average, as far as runners go)

Oh heck yes. Many of them do. The average one does not. That's why the Lonestar Grunt Posse on page 275 rolls 7 dice with their stun batons or pistols, but the Lonestar Named Character listed immediately afterwards has 10 dice on his Browning Max Power.

So "Detective Jacobson" rolls between 9 and 11 dice, but when "4 cops open fire", they are all doing so with 7 dice.

-Frank

If this is Enhanced Articulation, you might want to read the entry again. It only gives +1 to all Physical Skills linked to physical attributes. Thus, it doesn't apply to Combat skills. Confusion comes from the fact that it used to apply to Combat skills in SR3.

"Physical Skills" is an explicit category in the skill list. "Combat Skills" and "Vehicle Skills" are different skill categories.

So Enhanced Articulation applies to Infiltration but not to Unarmed Combat.

-Frank

Locksmith is a Technical Skill, so no, enhanced articulation doesn't help.

The only physical skills linked to physical attributes are: Climbing, Diving, Escape Artist, Gymnastics, Infiltration, Palming, Parachuting, Running, and Swimming.