[ArkangelWinter]

On the other hand, Palladium is at the opposite end if the spectrum: no fun because there's no attempt at balance.

[grumble]

One way to look at balance in a RPG is to express it through the character archtypes.

most games (including Shadowrun) have a ruleset of character creation designed to support roles to be fufilled within the game itself. The more the role is defined in the narration/rules, the more defined the characters' role is.
Their class.

To define roles by world rules then by character roles, only to 'break' into thoes definitions by  allowing indivual characters to have skills, powers and items not within their role is unbalancing in a way.

[Csjarrat]

To define roles by world rules then by character roles, only to 'break' into thoes definitions by  allowing indivual characters to have skills, powers and items not within their role is unbalancing in a way.

also allows you to play a game with fewer people though, if you have a face/mage and a combat/hacker you've covered four roles with 2 players. gives the game a lot more versatility, as table top rpg isnt exactly as easy as getting a game of FIFA going.
with the tech stuff available like passkeys and sequencers, it means you dont have to have a dedicated B&E to get a mission running and agents can help out a lot if you dont have a L33t H4xx0rz on your squad

[grumble]

Very true.

but should the game creators make a system designed for very few characters to play several roles?
or a system to allow for several individuals to be more specialized.

it comes down to what the narrative was expacted to look like in realtion to the rules.

[Henzington]

In shadowrun it all depends on the size of your group and since most tests are opposed the gm can easily scale the challenge based on the party.  You have a group of cybered street sam you probably wouldnt encounter alot of mages or you have a group of hackers you probably would deal with alot of cybered street sam.

[All4BigGuns]

On the other hand, Palladium is at the opposite end if the spectrum: no fun because there's no attempt at balance.

I disagree. Palladium does things with their system in the perfect manner. The "balance" stuff should, IMO, always be in the hands of the group playing (and I do mean the entire group, not just the GM), and not hard-built into the system. To do otherwise is the same in my opinion as a GM "putting on the conductor hat".

[sway]

Going back to the original post for a moment.

A lot depends on what you want to do and how you want to achieve it. You want to be a charlatan by the sounds of thing, you want to lie and spread misinformation around. Once again, giving UmaroIV a nod, his Technoshaman Technomancer seems capable of doing this sort of game. If you're not making your character for Missions, there are probably some non-Missions tweeks that could be made.

Looking at your build notes:

Skills group : influence 4
Skills group electronics 4
Hacking 5
Electronic warfare 5

cyber/ bioware:
Math SPU
Encephalon 1
Cerebral booster 2

1. Generally speaking, Electronic Warfare 4 and Hacking 6 is better to have than 5 ranks each, both because applications of Electronic Warfare the die pool doesn't necessarily need to be all that high, while with a lot of applications of Hacking, having a bigger die pool can be important... and because in terms of future karma allocations, its cheaper that way.

2. What do you have Cerebral Booster and Math SPU for? Are they just there for flavor (nothing wrong with flavor). I can't see a lot of times where having a couple of extra die for encryption and decryption is going to be terribly vital. Likewise, the increased Logic rating is basically just helping your Hardware and Software checks (some of them at least). Having higher Logic actually doesn't impact your Electronic Warfare or Hacking.

3. Why Encephalon (Rating 1) instead of PuSHeD? PuSHeD appears superior to Encephalon in every way - its cheaper in both nyuen and essence terms and its bonus applied to all Logic-linked skill tests, not just active ones... so your Academic and Professional knowledge skill tests get a little bump from it too. If for some reason you can only choose between having either/or, I'd go with PuSHeD every time. 

As for BP vs. Karmagen... I haven't had the chance to use Karmagen yet myself, so I couldn't say really.