So I'm pretty sure that having a higher essence/magic rating is a big deal to conjuring adepts as well as sorcerory ones, but I couldn't find anything in the books to tell me why. Since I'm still trying to deal with 4 re-locations in a month, and everything has not yet caught up with me, I lack the errata and the online time to find it (composing in a text file - will post today(5/25) if work gives me a ten minute breather).

Higher Essence doesn't really mean anything for PCs because their Magic rating is capped at 6 no matter what their essence is. Higher Magic, though, means you can summon higher force spirits without taking physical drain I believe, just like with spells.

The Abstruse One

The Magic Attribute has less impact on Conjurers as it does other types of magicians, yes, but it does have some impact.

The two big ones are:
* Your Magic Attribute plays an important part when Banishing spirits.
* Your Magic Attribute is used to determine if Drain is Physical or Stun.

Then there's the times where Magic matters to any magician:
* Your Magic Attribute limits the strength of wards you create.
* Your Magic Attribute limits how much Force in foci you can safely have active at any given time.

And etc.

It also determines the highest force spirit you can conjure.

Max spirit force: Magic x 2
Max watcher force: Magic / 2

I used to think that too till one of my players pulled that little rule out on me.

Yep, top-right of p188, SR3.

Magic x2 is the maximum Force of the spirit.

If the spirit's Force > Magic, the drain is physical.

Drain damage level is determined by Force relative to Charisma, drain power level is Force.


There.

Right, magic level says how powerful a spirit you can summon, Charisma says how much it will hurt.

One of the cool repercussions of this is that conjurors can generally handle more cyber/bioware than other magic types. A 5 or 4 magic rating is a lot less problematic, leaving room for other things. That gives conjurors more flexibility in some ways than full-blown mages.

Also, the times when geasa matter are shorter, especially for a Hermetic.

~J

So a char with the following:

Cha: 6
---
Essence: 4.5
Magic: 4

can summon a force 4 spirit taking 4M(stun) and a force 8 but he will take 8S drain. And this is charisma rolled, with only dice unused in the conjuring being useful.

Thanks for the page reference, that's what I really needed.