To me it depends on what else those people can do. Do I want two secondary faces who are also reasonable combatants, one is a half decent hacker or tech and the other has a nice sized truck and some first aid?
This is operating under the assumption that a specialized character cannot be a reasonable combatant, or be a half-decent Decker or tech, or own a nice truck or first aid kit.
That's simply not the case. You can specialize in a role and still have points left to do other things.
I prefer having a team that can handle a situation in more than one manner and bring more than one awesome skill to the table. It just seems unrealistic that you have a guy who has 20 dice in sniper rifles and can't fight unarmed, never learned to drive, and doesnt know any military etiquette or recon skills. Where the hell does this guy come from? I know everyone tries to maximize their points but the characters I see really should come from somewhere and make sense holistically. How do you play a character that only knows three skills but knows them to world renowned levels? Where did he grow up that he doesnt know anything else?
A
team will be able to apply more than one solution - a specialized team will be able to apply those solutions better.
Again - specializing doesn't mean you put 400BP into one thing. I have a combat specialist who has Knowledge Skills in military stuff - that's what Knowledge Skills are for...rounding out the things that your character is likely to have learned during their life to this point. If you build a Sniper who doesn't have any Stealth skills or other combat abilities, what exactly did you spent those 400BP on? Longarms 6 costs 60BP.
Also, there is synergy. My Street Merc doesn't have any driving skills, but he's augmented as all heck. He can drive better,
without any skill points, than an unaugmented Indy car driver. Could he be a better driver if he diversified? Sure...but our team has a Rigger. 99% of the time, driving is the Rigger's job...when it's not, my guy has raw talent and skillwires.
Plus, lets be honest, if all somebody has is a hammer - say con or sniper rifles at 20 dice - then every problem he faces is a nail, subject to sniper rifles or con. It gets predictable, it gets boring for everyone and when it doesnt work they have nothing else to offer.
Which is why running the shadows is done by teams. If you're running solo, then sure...diversify. It will lead to a more colorful eulogy. But for the sane people who know that Shadowrunning is meant to be done by five or six people...if your 20D6 Sniper can't shoot the problem, he's got team mates who have other options available.
A team of specialists will always trump a team of generalists. The specialists will, collectively, be better at everything. The generalists will have a bunch of redundancies, none of which they are very talented at.
If you're putting your team together, and need a sniper (sniper is actually a bad example, as it's a secondary skill not even worth dedicating a build to - one of your dedicated combat specialists can do it as a side job), are you going to hire the sniper who can also hack/fast talk/drive but is only a mediocre shot? Or are you going to get the best damn sniper you can? Keep in mind, before you answer, that your team probably already has a Rigger, a Decker, and a Face...
-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist
