There's a reason why trolls have a max 4 charisma.  It definitely has something to do with how their skin is rough and lumpy and all their facial bones are huge and square.

Because I'm bored I thought resurecting a dead thread would be fun, also my first try at a hacker/adept type due to boredom.

Human Adept

Body 3
Agility 2
Reaction 4 (6)
Strength 1
charisma 1
Intuition 5
Logic 4
Willpower 5

Edge 6
Magic 3(2)
Init 11 (13)

Essence 5

Natural Hardening
Adept
Addiction moderate (btls)
Allergy unc/sev (alcohol)
Low Pain Tolerance

Bioware
Synaptic Booster 2

Powers
Imp Ability Cybercombat 2
Imp Ability Electronic Warfare 2
Imp Ability Hacking 2
Imp Ability Infiltration 2

Skills

Cracking 4
Cyber Combat 4 (6)
Electronic Warfare 4 (6)
Hacking 4 (6)

Electronics 4
Computer
Datasearch
Hardware
Software

Dodge 6
Automatics 2
Perception 3
Infiltration 4 (6)

27 points of knowledge skills


Gear:
Feedback clothing regular
Armor Vest
Helmet

HK-227x w/gasvent 3
6 spare clips
200 rounds regular ammo
100 rounds Ex-Explosive
100 rounds stick-n-shock

Commlink: Meta link
Reponse 5
Signal upgrade 5
AR Gloves
Biometric Reader
Printer
Sat Link
Sim Module modified for btl/hot sim
skinlink
subvocal microphones
trodes
electronic paper
holo projector

Firewall 5
System 5
Analyze 5
Browse 5
Edit 5
Encrypt 5
Reality Filter 5
Scan 5
Armor 5
Attack 5
Biofeedback filters 5
blackhammer 5
Decrypt 5
Defuse 3
Eccm 3
Medic 5
Stealth 5
track 5
sniffer 4
spoof 4
data bomb 3

Fake Sin rating 4

Contact lenses w/low light, flare comp, image link, smartlink, thermo, vision enhance 3, vision magnification
Earbud w/ audio enhancment 3, select sound filter 3, spatial recognizer

1 month low lifestyle

I don't think Charisma has anything to do with physical appearance.

Like in D&D, it's force of personality, ability to manipulate, guide, and cajole others.

Trolls are just very shlubby, lumbering things. They don't particularly inspire.

Sure, Elves are hawt, but they're also majestic, which makes them more Charismatic.

Let us not forget, Shamans use Charisma+Willpower to resist drain, now don't you think if Charisma was just 'hot seksiness' that it'd be a little dumb?

Then again, busty sorceresses in skimpy outfits seem to be much awesomer at magic, so maybe you're right.

Sexiness can easily make you more magical, provided that your magical abilities work by appeasing the spiritual forces that govern your tradition. The crazy thing about SR4 magic is that it's really damn hard to make a strong case that any one magical Tradition is any more "valid" than the others, so being a busty young priestess type that makes some quasi-deity/Spirit hot in the pants may very well be a legitimate path to magical enlightenment. There's nothing in the book that says that some half naked 17 year old Grecian virgin can't stomp all over some smarty pants Hermetic Mage by asking Big Daddy Zeus to smite him with a mighty Lightning Bolt or to perhaps make an appearance as a Force 12 Guardian Spirit in exchange for an act of supplication. The Hermetic could whine all day that she just thinks that's how her magic works, but I'm afraid that won't do much to keep ol' "Zeus" from reducing the Hermetic's sorry ass to a red smear.

 I believe that physical attractiveness affects charisma, at least indirectly. I suspect it'd be tricky to grow into a confident young adult when everyone's busy telling you that your race is ugly and stupid, for example. Charisma's a nebulous stat for good reason; if they just made it work like a vanilla appearance score it'd just end up up being a bigger dump stat for many archetypes than it already is. It's annoying that charisma has to be so vague in nature, but it's a better stat in the long run because of it. Besides, it'd be a boring game world if everyone had to be supermodel beautiful for their high social skills to make sense by the RAW (it'd also make little sense in a world filled with cheap, effective plastic surgery). You either have charisma or you don't; how you got it is merely academic.

Shadowrun magic all works by the same rules, you talk about it as if it were Mage.

Even if they call it different things, in Shadowrun, the same basic mechanics, skills, and spells apply to all traditions, with maybe a few little swap outs for Attribute+Skill.

Shadowrun magic works by all the same rules because -everything- works by all the same rules. It's Attribute+Skill with fixed target numbers and opposed rolls. That doesn't, however, mean that by the fluff Hacking and Infiltration are performed the same way except with a few little swap outs for attribute+skill. I don't believe SR4 magic is the same as that in Mage, since there's some immutable laws of the universe that Magic can't even begin to toy with and spells generally all accomplish the same things. On the other hand, how exactly people initiate spellcasting and summoning in SR4 is inherently subjective. Generally speaking, however you think your magic works, it does. It's why stoically weathering Drain to prove your bravery to your Totem (Shaman, Charisma) can work just as as well as clearing your mind and remembering that all pain is transient (Buddhist, Intuition) or cleverly dispersing excess magical forces through force of will (Hermetic, Logic). By that same token, a Shaman who embodies some physical ideal and follows a mentor spirit/totem like the Great Mother or Sky King may very well be better at magic due to what others would see as merely superficial reasons.

Whats does any of this have to do with the guy i put up for suggestions on?

It's the non Euclidean tangent filled geometry of this place.

It does have something to do, but it isn't a direct relationship.  Hot != charismatic, but it helps.  Maybe sexy people are just more self confident, which allows them to develop more commanding personalities.  But one need not be hot to be charismatic, nor is a beautiful person automatically charismatic.  But just because they're not directly related does not mean they have nothing to do with each other.

Nothing, really. I'd drop your agility to 1 point and and ditch Low Pain Tolerance or downgrade one of your other addictions/allergies though. You can get back up to 2 agility with a measly 6 karma, after all, but Low Pain Tolerance could get you killed and can set you back a cool 20 karma provided the GMs ever let you get rid of it at all. Agility is one of the most important stats in the game, but a single die simply isn't all that important, especially if you can easily get it back cheaply later. Even when defaulting it's not that big of a difference. While it's much better to have a one in three chance than none at all, odds are you're still going to fail if you don't spend some of your 6 Edge, so in practice there's often little difference between the two scores.

EDIT: Oh, and I'd consider ditching natural hardening instead of/or in addition to your point of agility. Your character has Synaptic 2 so there's not much point in bothering with VR hacking, since he gets full passes even with AR. Hardening is OK when you are in full VR, but even then there's other qualities and attributes I'd look into first, like codeslinger.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Elfbians FTW!

Gamble has a wall full of elfbian porn, if no one could quite tell yet.   

Elfbians are boring...I'd rather it be trollbian porn where they are all dressed like a young brittany spears.

I am sorry...but..um..when did this become a game of dark cyberpunk horror as opposed to Cyberpunk with Magic! That is a truly FRIGHTENING image, on a par with meticulously and detailly described splatter punk torture and execution devices!

On I believe it was Detroit sometime around 99 or 00 that particular NPC was in a scene with us, a troll hooker named Babydoll who dressed like a young Brittany Spears and popped her chewing gum.

Its amazing how a disturbing image like that will stay with you for years, even though you remember nothing else about the plot.