[Tym Jalynsfein]

A Dice pool of 12 is not bad...

[Whiskeyjack]

A Dice pool of 12 is not bad...

That depends what your GM's expectations are in terms of enemies and difficulties. This forum generally assumes you want to maximize your relevant dice pools and cover your weaknesses as best you can, and that's the only flat assumption that can be made since we never know the specific table expectations. The result of that tends to be maximizing pools as much as possible, and 12 to shoot with a sam amounts to 4 sux on average, which is eminently avoidable especially with options like cover.

[Tym Jalynsfein]

True... Expectations are table dependent to be sure.

As a GM, I am of the opinion that Starting Characters should be in the 10-14 DP range for Primary Skills at game start. If you are higher, you will be more powerful than starting opposition, to be sure. But some people like that. Personally, however, I am more than  tired of seeing paper cutout Best in the world Spec Ops character concepts (of one flavor or another) that do not have nearly the skills required to fill that position (Can't really do it at character creation) and lack important skills (handwaved away because... who really needs those skills anyways)... This is why I far prefer Life Path Character Creation over Priority. With Life path skills, you actually see skills that a living, breathing character would have (yes, even if they are not all that usable to kill the opposition), and at reasonable levels (and yes, you can optimize the paths to create monstrosities here as well); rather than the character with 4 skills at 6, and an intent to possibly fill in the holes later in play, maybe, if they get around to it.

As a Player, that is how I design my characters.

[Glyph]

Shadowrun characters have very finite resources, so it is very difficult to make a character who has a generalist's spread of skills and a pro's dice pools.  It's kind of going against the grain of the system, too, since character creation is designed for making specialists who work as a team.  Special ops characters are difficult to make.  It is often better to make a Mafia legbreaker, or a back-alley pit fighter, or a cold-eyed former corporate expediter - character types who can do more than just shoot, but who don't require as massive a spread of skills.

I like fiddling with life modules, but it doesn't always give logical results, and this can be especially true if you are picking modules to fit a concept (although my Tir socialite archetype turned out fairly well).  If you want to build to concept, I find it works best to take fewer modules, leaving more Karma to use for tweaking the character and filling in any glaring omissions.