go ahead and use up that essence.... then talk to the shade in the graveyard and buy back your magic with karma/stats

or you could also be a conjurer and get the haste spell.

You also just get AP as you gain karma. I've gained two that way so far, plus my cyberware gives me a constant 5 AP

thanks guys. i didnt know u can buy back essence..

normally in shadowrun PnP you cannot, and with each .1 of essence you gain a -5 to 10 percent chance that you cannot cast a spell

For each Magic point to get back, you need to donate 90 Karma worth of skills to the spirit.
You can lvl up two skills from 4 to 10 for that much!

I dont think even AP giving cyberwares worth dumping that much Karma, but you can get +1 AP from Boosted Reflexes for 0,5 Essence (15.000 nuyen) from Downtown Doc if you want.
Probably need to get into decking to raise that much money in short time, same doc sells 0 Essence datajack.

I think if you use tactic and good damage ranged weapons + Aim (anything that fire 2 bullets with 1 AP cost) even in the beginning 2 AP can be enough.
And you always can conjure Haste, having 30-40 HP / 3-4 Body helps too.
Spending like 90 Karma will get you +1 AP permanently.

I think support spells like aim, heal, mind wipe/blindness, etc. And AP decreasing damage spells (Ball lightning) are more useful.
For doing damage ranged weapons are usually better, except Flamethrower, Manaball (crits often, area damage).
In a fight against more enemies, disable one with mind wipe/blindness etc., decrease others AP with ball lightning/stunball etc., and finish off at least one or more with high damage ranged weapon or Flamethrower fired from flanking position + Aim, before they get back to full AP.

It's more like after 115 Karma spent, I just hit that milestone with my latest toon started as a Adept/Caster mix and added the trodes datajack and currently running a Renraku deck, as well as level 4 conjurer for Haste 3 spell.

I'd like to see magical tattoos that fit in cyberwear slots. There's a content pack for this:

http://www.nexusmods.com/shadowrunreturns/mods/81/?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=166276021

The Y costs would have to be increased to be in line with cyberwear costs.

The leg tattoos look like they would give +1 AP (+1 movement).

only problem with the tatoos, is i dont believe they actually exist in the shadowrun canon; this mod appears to be trying to mimic the pen and paper version as closely as possible so i dont know that the tatoo mod would be something that south would add.

magical tattoos were introduced in street magic core rulebook for SR5

ah, good to know, chrismyco!

Correction - This mod is trying to emulate the Sega Genesis Shadowrun with some slight differences.

Adepts have always had a way to boost themselves permanently (since original Shadowrun). The only reason I suggested the tattoo mod was that they were created to fit into cyberware slots, but don't use Essence.

From a game balance standpoint (something Southwind is sorely lacking) they fit in well and it saves him from design work.