[Tirwalker]

So this question is going to have a different answer for every group, but I was curious, what would you consider an acceptable dice pool?  And this is going to be a bit different for what kind of pool, so lets break it down.

Weapon/attack pool for primary combatant and for someone who is secondary/backup combatant.
Social Skill for primary face and backup/secondary face.
Technical skills like first aid, demolitions, again primary and secondary/bu.
Magical pool for things like spell casting and summoning, again primary and backup.
Matrix action dice pools for primary decker and a secondary.

Assume someone out of character creation, standard starting power. 

Let the (polite and respectful) argument commence!

[All4BigGuns]

14 to 16 minimum for Primary specialty

10 to 12 minimum for areas intended for actual use that are not Primary

Anything less only for "fluffy" skills.

[JackVII]

I don't think you need to break them down. There is going to be some variability there as there are different ways to get more dice than the basic Attribute + Skill + Specialization dice pool that is pretty standard, depending on what you're doing.

Personally, I like to see at least 12 in a primary focus area and 9 in a secondary focus area after all is said and done.

FWIW, I tend to play in games where there is less focus on having optimized characters.

[Michael Chandra]

Primary attack pool 15, 12 for FA-users. Secondary 12, 9 for FA users. For everything else you basically want the normal 15/12.

[Marcus]

It'll depend on a lot. The character in question, the table in question. In general I shoot for 15ish plus or minus a couple, depending on limits for any primary activity. Some rolls are more competitive then others, and some are more critical then others, the get paid roll for instance I'm gonna come down on as hard as I possibly can within the limits of my concept and die source. If the rolls is one where I simply need a decent standard of success I would aim for 10ish. 

I'd revise down if I felt that pushed the curve dangerously, and revise up if I didn't feel like I was running at the same level as the rest of the table.

[Csjarrat]

If you think about your average successes rolling x amount of dice, its going to be roughly 1/3rd of your total pool.
10 dice gives about 3 successes on average, which gives fairly decent odds of passing a threshold 2 test and getting a net hit.
it will also allow you to take a -3 dicepool modifier and still have a reasonable chance of passing a threshold 1 test with a net hit.
I'd consider this a minimum starting point for any skill deemed important to the character.
Its important to know your negative modifiers for tests as this will let you gauge how many dice need to be in the pool to start with to get you reasonable odds of success, also don't forget dicepool bonuses from equipment.
Its fine to have a perception pool of 7 (using only attribute + skill) if you have vision enhancement rating 3 in your glasses for example.

The other thing to remember is that although more=better, there is a point where the investment to get really high pools starts to detract from the roundedness and balance of your character, making you into a one-trick pony.
i'd avoid this at all costs, numerous skills (like con, pistols and lockpicking) in the 12-15 area is much better for a shadowrunner than one skill at 26 (like soaking bullets)

[jim1701]

I say there is no wrong answer.  As long as the party is relatively balanced it shouldn't matter what dice pools everyone has within reason. The GM should always be tailoring the campaign to fit the players abilities IMHO.  The only issues arrive when one player produces a character significantly more powerful than any of the others.   

[Lucean]

If it's the main specialty I wouldn't want to start below 12, though if the option to go higher is affordable, I go for it.
Some tasks can be pushed really high from the beginning, like opening mechanical locks with a autopicker.

[Top Dog]

It depends on the type of test too; some are easier to boost then others. If you're a gun-type person, for example, Agi 8 + skill 6(+2) + 1 reflex recorder or adept thing + 2 smartlink for a total of 19 is easily doable at chargen, and you can easily get more. For a mage, Magic 6 + Skill 6(+2) + focus 2 for a total of 16 is near the top of what you can get and getting it any higher will take some serious sacrifices on other fronts. So a primary gunner needs a higher dice pool then a primary caster role, and other roles have similar differences (of course, just because the dice pools for gunplay are higher doesn't mean it's actually better).

Anyway generally I'd say around 15 for primary, 10 for secondary at a minimum.

Some can be lower and still be useful, but those probably wouldn't really count as secondary (summoning, for example, is still quite powerful at say 7 dice for sheer utility). Some "general use" skills can also be useful at a lower dice pool. A non-agi based character isn't going to have a high stealth, but putting some points in for say a dice pool of 6-7 is still worthwhile (but don't be the one volunteering to go scouting). Same for social skills - you shouldn't do the talking if you have 7 dice, but you might end up having to (or contributing to your face).

Others cannot be low. First Aid isn't going to do much unless you have at least 10 or so dice, and even then it'll be underwhelming (the treshold 2 is the problem here). Hacking skills too are problematic, because most people worth hacking have decent to good protection, so it's not something to dabble in.

[Lucean]

With teamwork being applied so lenient across the examples in the book, you should try to have the varying skills that apply covered by one character with a dice pool of 8+ with the skill being at 4+ to utilize these options.
Negotiation, Sneaking, First Aid (and maybe Medicine), Hardware (and other repair skills) could prove really valuable for the team to have one good leader and then at least two others but preferrably all being able to provide some assistance. Heck, you can even use teamwork on summoning spirits, now

[TheDai]

Well, our table doesn't go too much in the "high dice pool" area. Most of the characters are built quite broad and basically everyone has a few "fluff skills", which don't really help during the runs but outside of them.
Let's just say, munchkining isn't a problem.

So I've never seen a dice Pool thrown higher than 20 on my table. The Face gets to about ~18 dice for Con and Negotiation, our mage is somewhere between 12 and 14 dice with his magic, the decker has about 12 in everything, except Hack on the Fly with 15.

Shooting stuff ... oh my ... we are bad at that. I believe our highest dice Pool on the Table is 10 + Smartlink.
Point is, we have no designated "Street Sam" - or something like that. So we try to be not seen as much as possible and usually flee fights rather than trying to win them.

And then we have a lot (!!) of Skills with dicepools between 5 and 9.

Of course, we play "inefficient", but since our whole table does this, it's kinda balanced.

[Csjarrat]

I say there is no wrong answer.  As long as the party is relatively balanced it shouldn't matter what dice pools everyone has within reason. The GM should always be tailoring the campaign to fit the players abilities IMHO.  The only issues arrive when one player produces a character significantly more powerful than any of the others.   

Of course, we play "inefficient", but since our whole table does this, it's kinda balanced.

Absolutely, as a GM, it makes your job significantly harder if you've got a street sam with a gun skill of 18-24 and the rest of the party with only 8. either the street sam murderises everything if you tailor an encounter to the party; making it a cakewalk, or the party gets murderised if you tailor to the street sam's abilities to give him a challenge.

Golden rule; talk to your GM, he'll let you know if you're too far ahead/behind the power-curve of the party

[Kincaid]

So this question is going to have a different answer for every group, but I was curious, what would you consider an acceptable dice pool?  And this is going to be a bit different for what kind of pool, so lets break it down.

Weapon/attack pool for primary combatant and for someone who is secondary/backup combatant.
Social Skill for primary face and backup/secondary face.
Technical skills like first aid, demolitions, again primary and secondary/bu.
Magical pool for things like spell casting and summoning, again primary and backup.
Matrix action dice pools for primary decker and a secondary.

Assume someone out of character creation, standard starting power. 

Let the (polite and respectful) argument commence!

Lots of good advice in terms of table balance has already been given.  Power level varies quite a bit, but if we take Missions as a baseline....

1. There's a sliding scale with attack pools, both in terms of return on investment and attack effectiveness.  Mundane punches need a higher pool than 6-round FA bursts, for example, to have even close to the same level of effectiveness.  I would say 14 is a decent starting point for someone with Automatics, but lower DV/AP attacks will need 16+.  Backup attacks are generally ineffective attacks.  Having an Agility 3/Pistols 3 guy pop off with his Ruger in the middle of a fight is generally a waste of an attack action, to be honest.  If you can't attack, have some other ability or skill that makes you useful in combat or have some sort of tactical trick (like suppressive fire or grenades) that you bring to the table.

2. The penalty for failure (or simply a lower level of success) with social skills isn't as stark as it is with combat skills most of the time and for those moments in which you absolutely, positively need to con that guard, you have Edge, so the pool can be a little bit lower.  My Missions character was designed to be the second-best option at the table for a number of roles, and he rolls 13 dice if he needs to Face (15 for Bargaining).  That seems sufficient most of the time.  Having some competence in social skills is pretty much required for every player at my table, but that varies.  If you have 8 dice, you can be reasonably helpful in teamwork situations and can avoid embarrassment when you're on your own.

3. Technical skills generally take place out of combat, generally work on threshold, and allow for teamwork tests.  Assuming there's a little bit of coordination between players when it comes to skill allocation, 9-10 dice should do the trick.  If you're the only one with Hardware, think about getting to 12 if your GM handwaves certain things with buying hits.

4. Like combat skills, magic skills are very hard to quantify since what you're trying to do (opposed tests vs. rolling for hits) matters a great deal.  Different categories of spells will have different answers.  With that in mind, if you are playing some sort of backup spellcaster, look into reagents and types of spells that are generally unopposed.  For primary spellcasters, chargen caps things comparatively low, but I'd look at 13+.

5. You can never have too many Matrix dice.  Deckers have some of the hardest rolls in the game and some of the steepest penalties for failure.  15+ dice for Hack on the Fly (or Brute Force), slightly fewer for other actions.