The book MITS says that Adepts with magical power have their magical ability as priority A but otherwise are the same as a normal adept. So this seems to mean that you cant buy spell points at character creation. Any other opinions?

So far as I know you can.

You'd be sacrificing your B or C slots for getting good attributes or an Elf or Troll, but yes. Although, there are no rules that specifically say so, I think it would fall in the category along with all others capable of using the active Sorcery skill.

Yes, a Magical Adept can buy spell points but cannot buy power points like Physical Adepts to improve their adept powers.

Don't books with me so can't quote you chapter and verse. Sorry.

After you get your 8 points of magical power by voluntary geasaing all your points of magical power you start with 48 spell points. Is buying the extra 2 spell points up to a maximum of 50 really going to change your world?

Remember that they can only use six of those eight points until they've initiated twice for the magic.

~J

Technically, if you Geas the power it uses less power points, so they don't actually get 8 points of power, but rather 6. Very similar to buying Alphaware, only different. So they can use all "8 points worth of powers" becuase they only use "6 points of geasaed powers."

you get 6 points with a voluntary geasa so it only takes up 4.5 points of your starting 6 points. You then buy 2 more points of magical ability for 1.5 points of adept powers. Thus for all 6 of your starting points you get 8 points of magical power and 48 starting spell points. Whether you could use those 8 points with out initiating twice I don't know. You can only use a number of powers simultaneously up to your magic rating, but I have no idea if those 8 powers since there under a geasa only count for using 6 points simultaneously or they count as 8. Also, I realize this is a ridiculous thing to do at character creation and I would not let one of my players do it.

Actually, unless there's a blurb in MitS that specifically states otherwise, Adepts with the Magical Power power cannot legally buy spell points during character creation. While that power grants them access to Sorcery and Conjuring and even grants a few spell points itself, the character is still an adept and adepts are forboden from purchasing spell points as per SR3.

It's a completely stupid rule, however, and one I've always house ruled away. If a player wants to blow 25,000 nuyen per spell point to bond a focus, initiate, or do anything else any other Awakened character can do with their spell points, so be it. They're paying for it in other areas.

It may only be six points worth of powers, but it's still a power rated at a level above six. Same reason why you can't have Improved Edged Weapons 12 at chargen or somesuch.

~J

Right! You can only have the number of levels in a power equal to your Magic. So they can only buy 6 levels of magic ability at CharGen.

Adept powers are limited by your current Magic Rating, which is why a starting character (even shapeshifters -- they have a special rule saying as much in SRComp) cannot have any powers with a force/level higher than 6, and that's assuming they have a Magic Rating of 6 to begin with.

But yet, you can have an effective total of 8 Power Points worth of powers, but no adept (short of spending at least 550,000 nuyen to initiate twice with ordeals in a group, and even then only if your GM lifts the "Max Rating/Level/Force of 6 for starting characters limit) can have Magical Power higher than level 6 during character creation, even if they have two effective points leftover.

But they can blow those two points on Astral Sight or something else.

Hey, Kage, Namer, thanks for the clarification. For some reason, I was trying to reconcile the split in the Magic rating and geasa on each split in my head, and the numbers didn't add up. Sorry, comes from being overworked and overpaid - I mean, underpaid!

Yes, the best you could do is get geased Magic power level 6 (giving you an effective magic rating of 6 for sorcery and conjuring, even though you only used 4.5 points of magic!) and then geased astral perception or improved reflexes 1 (to name but two examples) for the remaining 1.5 points (or do 1.5 power points worth of ungeased powers).

If you are going down the spellslinger path, this is one of the best choices IMHO - you start with 36 spell points, an effective magic rating of 6, and still have 1.5 to 2.0 power points worth of adept powers. This makes you a very good starting magician, even though you lack astral abilities (ideally, make a Changeling with SURGEd astral perception ability and some other goodies (if your GM allows for the choosing of SURGE effects, that is - I for one don't)