Can you do any spellcasting with a magic at 2? Options

[Nifft]

can you be a mystic adept that's 6/0? with no points towards spellcasting? Thus getting astral perception and projection? while still being an adept?

You don't get free Astral anything as a Mystic Adept.

You can take Astral Perception for the price of 1 PP (as a PhysAd or MystAd), and you can get Astral Projection for the price of an Initiation metamagic (again, as a PhysAd or MystAd).

[Draco18s]

Well, they are getting almost all the benefits and saving BP to boot. It depends on your game.

Well, with 2 points towards casting spells, do you really think that F6+ is going to do a whole lot of good? You're still only throwing 6-8 dice at it.

I played a mystic adept split 2/4 and I didn't cast ANY spell above F3 for two damn good reasons:

1) Hits/net hits. I usually only got 3 hits.
2) Drain. The spells I did have* were pretty drain heavy. Above F3 I couldn't reliably soak most of their DV.

*Camouflage, improved reflexes, mind net. IIRC

[sabs]

I said, 'almost all'. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) And that's as it should be: god forbid they make a sacrifice to get the best of both worlds.

What do you mean, sabs? You can't get Projection, period, and you have to buy Perception.

I thought for some reason that Mystic Adepts got Projection and Perception.
Looks like I was.. incorrect.

[Mäx]

Well, with 2 points towards casting spells, do you really think that F6+ is going to do a whole lot of good? You're still only throwing 6-8 dice at it.

Well that depends on your build, most of my mys-ads throw 15+ dice for combat spells(their all combat characters)

[Udoshi]

By the rules in the actual books, you can cast spells up to twice your total magic.
The "clarification" in the FAQ isn't supported at all by the book.

Yeah, the "clarification" in the FAQ is a 2006 ruling for shadowrun 4. Anniversary edition changed the ruling in the meantime, and nobody took the outdated FAQ down when it was updated sometime in 2010.

Way to throw the game back half an edition, catalyst.

[Udoshi]

Also, to address the OP's question

This Thread may be of use.

[Brainpiercing7.6...]

I'm currently playing a 3 casting/2 powers MysAd with one point in Cyber/bio.

I'm limiting myself to overcasting to Force 6.

I do notice that with 8-10 dice to cast my success is often limited. A Power Focus is very high on my list of things to get.

Things of note:

Increase Attribute sucks: You need to cast it at a force equal to your current attribute. So if your current augmented stat is anything over 3, then you're basically fucked, even with a sustaining focus.

I have
Resist Pain
Heal
Shatter
Magic Fingers
Levitate
Improved Invis
Fix
Increase Reflexes

I use edge-cast Increased Reflexes to get 4 passes in a Force 3 focus. We have another mage who hopefully will prevent the focus from being attacked in astral.

I'm actually still a fan of Attribute Boost for a guy like this: It's slightly erratic, and you keep having to drain 4-5S, but it's cheap, and I only need three successes anyway to reach Agility 9.

But man is this guy a karma grave. There are so many corners you need to cut to make an allrounder like this (even in Karmagen) that I could basically drop a few hundred karma on him and not be satisfied. My best bet at maximising my effectiveness is getting Channelling ASAP. I think that's a big bonus of a mystic adept, that you can actually summon spirits, albeit weakly.