Alright, so I'm thinking about making a mostly astral mage and I'm wondering exactly how useful is this guy gonna be? Like, what kind of action is it to Astrally project? What happens if your magic is reduced to 0 (say by background count) and your in astral form? Is it possible to communicate with someone who isn't Awakened and astrally perceiving?

Also, I had a cool idea on how to use the Awakened drug shade along with DMSO (pg 82 Arsenal) to annihilate non mages on the Astral plane.

So do you think it's plausible, or does anyone have any cool ideas on how to use an Astral mage in a run?

You can't interact with any character that isn't perceiving (dual-natured paraplayers are always perceiving--unless they're a drake in metahuman form in which case the aren't dual-natured (yeah, drakes are freaking weirdos)).

You also can't hurt a creature that isn't perceiving (otherwise you'd geek the troll by sicking a force 1 spirit on him).

Your job is going to be astral defense: geek the astral mage, geek the astral spirit, (help) geek the paracritters.

Scouting astrally is very useful.

Oh yes. That too. Make sure you and your GM are aware of things like magically active moss grown inside the walls of high security areas.

seems like a weapon foci is a necessity for this build. Also, the Shade would work, but I'd give the ammo to some one with a gun while you run around on the astral. More efficient.