[Ghostbear28]

If I lose essence I lose magic as well but is it max magic rating, current magic rating or both?

[jim1701]

Both.  However, you don't lose your magic permanently unless your max magic hits zero. 

[Ghostbear28]

So if I make an adept with only 4 magic rating then lose an arm dropping my essence from 6-5 that would also drop my magic from 4-3 as well as making my max drop from 6-5

[Shaidar]

So if I make an adept with only 4 magic rating then lose an arm dropping my essence from 6-5 that would also drop my magic from 4-3 as well as making my max drop from 6-5

Loss of the arm doesn't change you Essence, but rather how you compensate for the loss that can lower your Essence. You can get a cloned arm and not lose Essence or have Cyberware installed which is what lowers you characters Essence.

[jim1701]

Correct.  Assuming you replaced it with a cybernetic replacement.

Also, you only lose magic (current and max) when you cross that whole number line.  Go from 6.0 to 5.8 lose 1 point of magic.  Go from 5.8 to 5.6 and you don't lose any magic.  Go from 5.6 essence to 3.8 essence and you have lost two more points of magic.  Hopefully that makes sense. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that your current magic can't drop below zero.  So if you have a current magic attribute of 3 and a max of 6 and you spend 3.5 points of essence you will have a current magic attribute of 0 and a max of 2.  You could then spend 5 karma to buy your magic attribute back up to 1.  Personally I think that is too cheesy for me but it is legal.  You can still only raise your max attribute via initiation as normal. 

[Ghostbear28]

Does this apply to character creation as well?

[Lethal Joke]

Yes.

Though it's notable that if you take, for example, a datajack for 0.1 essence, your magic rating drops by one but you can cyber up 0.9 essence worth before you lose any more magic. So there's that.
Makes me wonder if anyone has made a decker adept...

[Ghostbear28]

So just a recap to make sure I understand correctly I make an adept with a magic rating 4 then buy a data jack that will drop my starting character to a 3 magic rating out the gate. I do understand the .1 essence drops the magic rating I am just making sure that it is both current and max that drops at the same time. I am just confused cause both character generators that my group uses only reflects the max not the current. The only they drop the current is if your current is higher then your max and I wanted make sure that either the program was dead on or not as it is not clearly stated in the book.

[LordGrizzle]

So just a recap to make sure I understand correctly I make an adept with a magic rating 4 then buy a data jack that will drop my starting character to a 3 magic rating out the gate. I do understand the .1 essence drops the magic rating I am just making sure that it is both current and max that drops at the same time. I am just confused cause both character generators that my group uses only reflects the max not the current. The only they drop the current is if your current is higher then your max and I wanted make sure that either the program was dead on or not as it is not clearly stated in the book.

If that is the case then those character generators are faulty implemented.

[Raven2049]

ya chummer 5 does this as well

if you have a magic 5/ess 6 character and put in a datajack, the magic does not go down, but the essence does. however, once you go past your magic rating in essence it drops 1 also.

altho, i think that may have been fixed?

EDIT:

just checked, the MAX magic rating does go down once you add the datajack. but the magic rating stays at its listing (unless you start with 6 magic) once you add another piece or pieces of ware that drops your essence past your magic rating then the attribute starts reflecting correctly

[Shaidar]

This is probably an artifact from Chummer4, the program presumes that the Magic rating you specify is the one you want your character to have at the end of the generation process and thus spends BP/Karma to buy the rating back up after you add 'Ware to your character. It does it automatically without you having to manually re-increase your Magic Rating.

[Raven2049]

I don't know if that's 100% the case it could be as I can't open charmer this very minute. But just going off of memory I did not notice a karma discrepancy after I did that test. So I'm not 100 percent sure that the Karma goes down in relation to your magic rating going back up to where it was intended to be as you said it.

[jim1701]

I tried it and it does not in Chummer.

[Sterling]

Just tried it in Herolab and it correctly reduces both the Magic Attribute and the maximum.

(Great program, by the way, can't wait for Run Faster to be released for it!).

[Senko]

Sadly I think it'll be awhile, waiting for it as well.