[Mercer]

I get how lowering your essence lowers your current and max Magic rating.  In chargen, if I wanted to start play with a 3 Magic and 3 points of Essence in cyber, would I buy a 3 Magic (since that's my max Magic) or buy a 6 Magic and reduce it to 3?

[Mirikon]

You'd buy 6 Magic and reduce it to 3.

And it should go without saying, but mages should never, ever get serious ware installed. Some case can be made for minor ware (up to 1 Essence worth), but more than that is just dumb, especially since there are spells that replicate most things you can do with ware.

[UmaroVI]

Most ware does suck, but you can get your soul's worth out of 2 essence for Logic tradition mages. See my sig and the Burnout Combat Mage for an example. It's not better than not having 'ware, or than having 1 point, but it isn't worse either.

[Mercer]

Cybered mages were a better deal in previous editions when Magic limited force but wasn't used in the spellcasting roll, and Magic didn't have to be bought up.  Still, sometimes concept trumps points, otherwise I'd just make one character and play it over and over again.  A 3 Magic is... workable.  I'm playing a Mystic Adept right now that's 3/3 between his casting and adept abilities, and it gets the job done.

It comes up because I dug out my old copy of Psi-Ops and running around shooting people while occasionally TK'ing them into things is a lot of fun.  If I was serious about doing it I might go with a light cyber-sammie and take Latent Awakening, maybe throw in the Amnesia quality and go from there.

[Glyph]

Cybered mages were also more viable in SR3 because spell limitations such as fetish or exclusive could reduce the spell's effective Force for Drain purposes, and because a power focus actually increased your effective Magic Attribute.  There were ways to be a cybered-up mage or sorcerer and still lob Force: 6 spells around.

[All4BigGuns]

Cybered mages were a better deal in previous editions when Magic limited force but wasn't used in the spellcasting roll, and Magic didn't have to be bought up.  Still, sometimes concept trumps points, otherwise I'd just make one character and play it over and over again.  A 3 Magic is... workable.  I'm playing a Mystic Adept right now that's 3/3 between his casting and adept abilities, and it gets the job done.

It comes up because I dug out my old copy of Psi-Ops and running around shooting people while occasionally TK'ing them into things is a lot of fun.  If I was serious about doing it I might go with a light cyber-sammie and take Latent Awakening, maybe throw in the Amnesia quality and go from there.

Are you using base SR4 + FAQ or something because without lowering your Essence, you still cast at the full Magic 6 by the rules.