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The fact that Astral Lords have to expend permanent I.S.P. to bring an object into the astral plane makes me sad. I don't want to lose ISP in order to wear clothing. Then I notice the ... lets say grey area of canon ... Shadows of Light has a character Psi-Shaper who can temporarily astrally reconfigure items. That makes me much happier.

Now imagine I'm your player, I ask if my character might be able to do something similar. Would you be appalled at the suggestion of a physical psionic power called Astral Reconfiguration that worked like the Psi-Shapers ability?

Or should I simply learn to love the fact that practically everyone is nekid on the astral plane?

I never thought of it that way.
But it does not come up in the text so *shrugs*
I just guess there is a "your don't notice things like that" field in the astral plane or that visitors automatically/without thought form clothes out of the ectoplasm of the Astral plane or while you can tell people apart by their looks any privet bits are glowy/fuzzy/censored out while in the AP.
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However, it would be just the non-natives that would be sans clothing. Reff. the NS:BTS AP native races' artwork.

While Astral Projection is silent on the issue

Astral Transference is pretty clear "At the end of the meditation period, the character's body (but not any clothing or equipment that has not been specially reconfigured; see below) is transformed into an astral equivalent"

So you'd be part of team ignore it, which I would also be fairly fond of myself.

I wouldn't allow that as a psionic power available to all.

I *would* allow it to any character that can create an astral domain as part of their OCC or RCC, though probably at a higher cost than the shadows of light character gets it.

Incriptus wrote:The fact that Astral Lords have to expend permanent I.S.P. to bring an object into the astral plane makes me sad. I don't want to lose ISP in order to wear clothing. Then I notice the ... lets say grey area of canon ... Shadows of Light has a character Psi-Shaper who can temporarily astrally reconfigure items. That makes me much happier.

Now imagine I'm your player, I ask if my character might be able to do something similar. Would you be appalled at the suggestion of a physical psionic power called Astral Reconfiguration that worked like the Psi-Shapers ability?

Or should I simply learn to love the fact that practically everyone is nekid on the astral plane?

the power says that very small objects can be transfered as a group, rather than individually. I would say one ISP is enough for a complete clothing set, rather than an ISP each. it seems fair and reasonable.

I always assumed that your astral projection included the clothes you were wearing at the time as it is not really you, just an image/projection of you, mimicking your appearance when you projected. Your actual body (and clothes) don't move. But it isn't specifially stated. I guess with astral transferrence the astral form is actually the real you so everything else is left behind.

But at least an astral lord can bring whatever he wants into his astral domain at no cost (as long as physics allows), so he can get dressed when he arrives! Any self-respecting Astral Lord is bound to have a few sets of clothing put aside for guests!

Soldier of Od wrote:I always assumed that your astral projection included the clothes you were wearing at the time as it is not really you, just an image/projection of you, mimicking your appearance when you projected. Your actual body (and clothes) don't move. But it isn't specifially stated. I guess with astral transferrence the astral form is actually the real you so everything else is left behind.

But at least an astral lord can bring whatever he wants into his astral domain at no cost (as long as physics allows), so he can get dressed when he arrives! Any self-respecting Astral Lord is bound to have a few sets of clothing put aside for guests!

Rule: All arrivals are in the 'cloak room' where robes hang on the rack under the sign "when you care enough to shift the barely dressed"

Possible solution to this prob for the Lords...

Use creation points to buy the astral reconfiguration power for your realm.

Create a portal.

Stick your hand through the portal to grab an item in the real world so you can configure it while drawing upon your realm to use the power rather than yourself.

Obv. the 'cast it forever' thing was designed to base the creation point cost on temporary ISP not permanent ISP, but since it doesn't explicitly say this, there's wiggle room.

I always hated the Astral Reconfiguration thing and just removed it from my games.

To be honest the issue has been handled in different ways in different games.
In one game the flavor of the game involved how we had great power... with annoying and seemingly arbitrary limits. In which case it was rigidly enforced.

In another game the entire group was all teenagers dealing with the trauma of Dark Day, in which case in the interest of good taste we simply decided that your personal image included a default set of 'ectoplasmic clothing'. Which neatly eliminated the rather awkward play issue of underage nudity.

In a third game the theme was basically over the top dark-super heroics and it was totally ignored because it got in the way of fun (in this particular game) stuff like having the astral mage blink in to the cell where the group of nightbane were tied up with a golf bag of browning machineguns so we could shoot up Typhoon on the way out.

Find what works for the game your in, and go for it.