@nitsua60 - the OP specified a system rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/134482/…

perhaps the planes tag should also be added

hmmm, should there be a Pun-Pun tag?

because there are like... at least 2 questions asking about him directly, in total 19 question mention him.

hmmm.... astral... shouldn't that be astral-plane?

@Trish Astral was already there, perhaps it should be remaned

@ravery that's my idea... just tossing it to people more knowledgeable here. Also, Astral-plane is not specifically a D&D concept... in SR, it is taking the same spot as the Penumbra/Umbra in the WoD...

which... what to call the WoD equivalent? Create a (Pen)umbra tag?

@Trish well Astral plane is defined as a transitive plane (one used to travel to others).

@ravery just mentioning that it is used differently in D&D and SR.

so comes down to do we want to use the broader adj Astral or the noun Astral-plane.

@Trish If there are similar planes with different names in other systems, perhaps a broader term for it

@ravery the Penumbra is very different from Astral Realm, in that any little other realm is part of the Penumbra/Umbra.

technically, Umbra means Shadow.

it is the shadow of the real world

@Trish I am open to being over ruled, but personally I believe that the Astral plane differs substantially from other planes of existence in D&D

@ravery yes.

while the SR Astral Plane is pretty close to the Penumbra

@Trish Do you think the tag may cause confusion between systems?

@ravery I just think that the tag should not be system specific, unless it is necessary.

@Trish ah, are you speaking of the description I wrote for the tag?

@ravery yes. it is good, but might be a little D&D centric.

Perhaps reducing it to: " A plane of spiritual travel instead of physical."

and remove the physical description of it

oh, I add to it atm... making the first parts pretty much the "basis" and then adding the other two as examples how they can look and feel.

@Trish I suggested renaming the tag to [astral-plane] a few weeks ago

@V2Blast good one. Voted.

speaking of which, as @Trish said, I agree that the tag info @ravery just added is very D&D-centric (especially 5e-centric) as written... probably because most of it's taken from the description of the Astral Plane in the 5e rules? It's fine to be D&D-centric if D&D is the only RPG it exists as a concept in, but it should be made clear in the tag info if that's the case.

(I dunno if descriptions of the Astral Plane have changed from previous editions, but if so, the tag info may need to be less 5e-specific.)

The Shadowrun Astral is really more like the circa-3E D&D Ethereal, come down to it?

Some things are co-present there and in conventional reality.

SR's Astral hits the concept of... "The Astral Plane is a Transitive Plane. It serves primarily as ways to travel from one plane to another. Spells or Abilities such as Astral Projection allow characters to enter this plane and traverse it to reach the planes beyond."

that's why I revised it to have other paragraphs at rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/astral/info

Also the tag info should probably focus on describing the tag rather than describing more than the most important details about the plane? Mainly, the slightly edited descriptions from the 5e rules still use pretty flowery language/similes/metaphor, which makes for interesting reading in the rules but isn't really needed in tag info

hmmm, true... you might revise onto it. the SR thing I described is pretty much "all rules", the D&D stuff is... no idea.

(as in all rules: all this has rules-significance. Traveling through auras is harder, objects still break line of sight but not block travel, Aura reading is a thing.)

Sorry, have they changed that in recent SRs? I know there's initiation and the like that can kick you into planar gates, but when an SR mage takes "astral form" aren't they just ghostin' it in regular reality? And corps will sometimes, like, grow Awakened ivy around buildings they don't want a street mage to drift into?

I would simply... toss "It is described as a great, silvery sea, the same above and below, with swirling wisps of white and gray streaking among motes of light resembling distant stars. Erratic whirlpools of color flicker in midair like spinning coins. Occasional bits of solid matter can be found here, but most of the Astral Plane is an endless, open domain." from it?

@Glazius because awakened Ivy is astrally active, making travel slower... and it leashes out, making it dangerous. mages are close to ghosts, they still have the tether to their body so to say. And whie they are ghosting, they could show themselves.

Yeah. Or at least simplify it to "It is described as an endless, mostly empty silvery sea punctuated by occasional floating pools of color."

@V2Blast good one! use that!

still waiting for the usage guidance pending edit to get approved so the system will let me edit :P

ugh...

@Glazius it's pretty much the same since 2nd Ed, but to kick in to the other realms, you pass through the Astral one.

Right, but the Astral Plane in D&D has no connection to, like, your Prime Material. You've got the flesh anchor going, but distance and motion on the astral bear no relationship to any feature in any world.

You can run astral overwatch on your team in most Shadowruns. That concept isn't possible in D&D.

@Glazius yes, in D&D astral plane is not just a layer over the world like in SR but a distinct plane.

but "is a Transitive Plane. It serves primarily as ways to travel from one plane to another." is true in both cases.

(technically, that would make the Umbra in WoD also hit this, but it uses a different term and is in all other things weird...)

If it refers to two significantly different concepts in the two settings (which would make sense given that they're different RPGs), it should probably be split into separate tags that are labeled accordingly (e.g. [astral-plane-dnd] and [astral-plane-shadowrun])

I take issue with "primarily" for SR. Unless they've significantly upped their game in later editions, even the most player-facing means of astral interplaning, the initiation journey, isn't really well-documented or supported, and crashing into a sprit plane is the stuff of high-end run. It's like saying the primary purpose of the Matrix is to get you into Renraku Arcology 2.0.

dunno if they are different enough to justify it, but that's my thought

There's much more support for using the SR Astral as the D&D Ethereal, kind of a... mages-only augmented reality?

@Glazius yeah, the description sounds like it

or a mix of thw two

@Trish I approved the edits

D&D5e: I've read that Clerics knows all their spell list, not like Wizards which needs to learn them. But, if I want to use homebrew spells or from others books, does I know all of them instantly or I have to learn each one like wizards do?

That'll be, by definition, part of the homebrew.

(And what do you mean "from others books"?)

@nitsua60 Xanathars Guide To Everything is "other book" and it gives a few new spells to Clerics

@EnderLook Clerics can prepare spells in their spell list, and XGtE expands their spell list. So they can prepare them as usual.

@kviiri Ok. But about homebrew spells, Does they also expand the spell list?

(This is explained in the start of Chapter 3: Spells in XGtE)

@EnderLook Like nitsua said, it's homebrew so we can't know.

@kviiri Oh, ok

@kviiri But usually, what does a DM?

I don't know, really. I've never played with a GM who felt the need to introduce homebrew spells

Ok

But were I to do it, I wouldn't want to create exceptions to muddy the waters. If a spell is a cleric spell, it works like a cleric spell and can be prepared as usual

Ok, thanks

What have you got in mind?

@kviiri I'm not sure what do you mean: A) If you are talking about what I think it would be the answer, I didn't have any idea. B) If you are talking about why I was asking this, is because I found a few Cleric homebrew spells that got my attention and I was wondering how could I use them.

@EnderLook Yeah, I meant which particular spells you have

By default I'd assume they work like normal Cleric spells but you should ask the group (and preferably someone outside the table too, if you're beginners) whether the spells are any good otherwise

Many things homebrew are rather poorly thought out :

@EnderLook Ooh, one minor thing I forgot about XGtE: unlike the spells in PHB, the ones in Xanathar aren't "in the game" by default. For XGtE, it's explicitly up to the GM to allow/disallow spells in the list. (although ofc a GM might disable anything from PHB too...)

@kviiri The DM agrees with XGtE.

@kviiri I like Elemental Bolt, Halo of Rejuvenation, Create Guardian, Bound Item, Warmth, Convalescence

Halo, Repairs, Divine Power

Halo of Rejuvenation seems rather OP

hey there @Helwar

Help pls: I need an immediate advice! Shall I use de point buy system or make two arrays with 4d6 dices and choose one of them?

16 15 13 13 10 7 or 15 14 11 11 10 10? The first has a weakness, but it's stronger....