I'm not saying a cap on dice is bad. Just saying that context does matter.
For example your 10 dice limit, that could work just fine in one ruleset, built around that max.... but you would have to build around that max from the ground up.
Having a 10 dice max for say melee combat, when the DP is STR+Skill is a really shitty thing to do to trolls if they can max out their DP without a skill....("I don't care if your STR is 16 and you have 6 ranks in melee combat.... 10 is all you get!)...
Or if you have so many modifiers as to push the skill to nothing. ("I buy this gun, add on a smartgun, laser site, led pimp lights, and gold plate for +12 dice! Now I don't need a skill or attribute at all!!"
One house rule I played under, the GM allowed only a flat +4 max to any dice pool. No matter the source... took a little getting used to, but worked well enough.
Yeah for sure it needs to be effectively fixed slots in the die pool. put simply attribute will be 1-3 (1 below average, 2 average, 3 above average). Augment max will be 5. Race or exceptional attribute can give 1, and Tech or magic can give 1 but Tech/magic are mutually exclusive. Nothing takes you above 5 ever. Skills will be become skills groups, rating 1 to 3 (1 amateur, 2 trained, 3 Professional), specialization will be what are skills are now and give 1. The 10th possible die is the gear die. Gear has a single die slot, and gear slots will come from magic or tech, my vision of it basically re-casts entering an archetype as acquiring a linked piece of gear, a Smart Weapons for Street Sam, a Casting Focus for spellslingers, a Weapon Focus for adept, a Controller for Rigger, a Deck for deckers, a Bio transmission Enhancer for TMs. etc. Now of course a character could buy and/or install as many of these as they can use. But pricing/priority/essence cost should limit those options fairly sharply, and tech and magic will be mutually exclusive.
System wise there are going to be two types of test Simple and Complex. All combat tests are Simple, your pool vs a static targets. ( 4+ on the die is a success ie 50% so the average on 10 dice is 5 hits, defense is stat target generated from (reaction+dodge+gear die)/2 if the character has gear that effect dodge (So max defense is 5) so that's the bound curve. Now obviously the system doesn't always expect a full ten dice, odds are more tests wont, an option on that will relate to edge. Complex tests will be of the threshold variety. X number of success before exhausting Y number of rolls, in Z linked time units. I don't know that math look like yet, but it will be similarly bound as simple tests.
So improvement your character will dual tracked, karma for skills and attributes, and for gear Augment slots for tech, also Called Rune for foci. Each piece of gear can take 3 augments/Runes. You can't start with them, they have to be acquired in play, and they will do things to enhance the linked piece of gear. For example An augment for smart gun would be ADPS ammo that would add penetrating feature to the weapon, or an elemental rune to you weapon focus, which would give you weapon a elemental damage effect. Now of course this works for all gear, armor, drones.
We will Keep wireless bonuses, Which will distinguish tech gear from magic gear. You can't enchant a piece of gear with a wireless bonus. So no more weapon focus mono-whips. Gear with 1 augment is Alpha Ware, 2 is Beta-ware, and 3 is delta ware. Runes will carry similar naming system.
To solve an old issue no more attribute option on the priority tables. We are long past the day and age where that was anything other then a trap. All characters have the same base number of attribute points (Probably sliding based upon your game type, street vs runner vs Prime runner), what will modify attributes will by the races priority. Each race will give +1 to two attributes, (Agi/Cha for elf, Str/Reac for Orc, Str/Body for Troll, Int/Body for Dwarves. Doubtless more meta exists and will have their own attribute pairings.) Humans get +2 to edge.
Soak will exist, as the Sum of (Body+Armor)/2 and like defense will just eat the average, Weapons with Penetration tag will ignore 1/2 of that. Hardened armor soak will give Body+Armor and penetration will ignore 1/4 of that.
Ok. So as attribute run 1 to 3. Essence now == 3. So ware essence cost will be re-balanced around that. Magic and Essence linked for the purposes of ware. But not in value. Further drain now effect Essence. Drain effect deal temporary essence damage. You can't get below .1 temporary essence damage. So 30 spells day, and that last .1 drops you out cold. Hand in hand with this will be magic threat will drain temporary essence. This should make magic threats dangerous.
Magic now also falls into Simple or Complex. Spellcasting is simple, and Ritual Magic is Complex. Summoning is now ritual magic. Spirits will be governed by the 1-3 limit as well. So no more super deadly spirits, Spirits will have rune slots, and will be more basically more fixed. IE when your hermetic summons up his fire elemental, he will always get the same fire elemental. So in effect you will have possible 1 spirit of each type you can summon. There will have to be governors to limit action economy on this, no more spirit armies. But regardless spirits will be more fixed and more personality based, they need to be decent in a fight but not the nightmares we have today, some strong utility elements to be added.
Hacking will now also fall be Simple or Complex, Simple hacking will be called Wireless hacking, and Full sim will be Complex hacking. Wireless hacking will large allow you to brick tech, run certain types of data search/observation, and will be enabled or limited by LOS. Complex Hacking will be run as a complex test, and will basically be our virtual dungeon crawl, while accumulating success on the complex test.
Rigging, TM all will have simple and complex mechanic options. Simple directly relating to combat, and Complex relating to archetype systems.
Healing and death. So Healing effects will you guessed it fall into the two categories, Simple (aka Stun damage) and Complex (aka lethal damage). Simple Healing or first aid, will remove stun damage, pretty easily. (Like stun patches easy). Complex or medicine will cause damage roll back. Which will shift lethal damage boxes to the stun track. Complex will of course have longer interval. Magic will have the fastest healing, and will roll back damage. But with most of the usual SR healing limitations. Over damage and death. So no more over damage boxes. When a characters fills their last lethal damage box. They start dying, this trigger the Fight for Life Test. This will be Body+Will vs (1/2 your lethal Damage boxes) on your initiative. Get 3 success before 3 failures and the character stabilizes. Medical gear/Healing magic will allow of course instant stabilization. Being hit while your down triggers another Fight for Life Test with a difficult increased by the damage done. Just meaning that getting hit while done kills. 3 failures before 3 success and of course your dead.
So after all that we hit edge. I'm 100% on this yet, but my current feeling is edge attribute == combat pool. meaning that human will combat pool of 3, you can get a 4, with merits but nothing takes edge to 5. Each turn characters get Combat pool dice. Combat pool dice can be used to augment Simple Test Targets difficulties. (IE that static defense test can be raise in reaction to be hit by a combat pool success.) Combat pool is drawn from edge. If you have combat roll that is below 10 dice, you can spend combat pool to raise it up to 10. But nothing can raise it above 10 dice.
Glitches and Opportunities. So if you thought edge was messy, welcome to the jungle. So to add some spice to the whole thing, we will of course be keeping Glitches, but to help even it out, I'm adding Opportunities. Glitches are complication due to some number of 1 and opportunities their opposite being are an advantageous condition due to some number of 6s. I'm look at that math very carefully. Running numbers in my head at work said 3 6s or 3 1s is a something like 5% on 10 dice. I need to run down that math specifically but that's my place holder for now. Getting glitch of course still assumes you have a success, or can you get critical glitches. i'm interest in putting in Critical Opportunities, but I'm not sure what that would like, so I'm open to discussion. It's likely there is enough going on in that you could get, a Glitch, and opportunity on the same roll and that maybe just to much and wandering to far from the simplicity that is the goal of this. I know that math gets weird below 10 dice but I'm gonna leave that alone for now.
Penalties and Advantages Ok so something just are impossible. You cannot hide in the all concealing shadows when there are no Shadows. That said, while the GM can just rule at various some skill uses are impossible under common sense circumstances. However much more likely things are just not in your favor. So when this circumstance arises, and would be at a "Penalty" your roll becomes more likely to Glitch or Critical Glitch. Should you have an advantages circumstance you would of course have an increase chance of an opportunity as well. So again I just did the math quickly in my heading the slide value goes to something like 30%. The idea is to have this not disrupt the bound curve, while still increasing the pressure on the PC. Exceptions: Wound Penalties these are a core concept of SR. I can't get myself to drop them. So yeah -1 increasing linked to X number of boxes filled.
Finally initiative and movement. So 50% turning back the clock and 50% modern. So half actions you start with three. Initiative increase give additional half actions. So Wired Reflexes gives a half action per level of it rating (Rating also of course go 1-3.) It's rating increases with Augment slots along with whatever the effect of augments are. So something like 6 half actions as a cap. Things like Bursts fire, Full Auto, weapon sweeping, two weapon fighting will allow you to attack more then one target. This will largely be governed by weapon modes, augments, and martial arts. Attacks will require two half actions to launch, Melee are intended to have better damage value then range b/c strength will be added to the melee weapon damage rating. (Excepting the mono-whip of course.) Moving is a half action, moving will be a set value depending on metatype, vehicle etc, and spending more half actions on movement will give you another agile in meters or something along those lines, a very small amount basicly.
So that's my initial thought concept. Sorry for the wall of text. It's basically just dream land but I like it.