[Skarg]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

So how does this play out? Using a Melee Map as a big room, do you place furniture and doors down, then physical plane figures like guards or Guild Members at a meeting. Is the astral figure placed on the map, but ignored because he's 'not there'?

Yes.

Going by the book, the astral figure is probably going to be invisible to everyone in the real space unless they were expecting it and somehow have Mage Sight or defenders also in the astral plane.

So if there are players with figures in the material plane, you'd wait until the astral person did something that might alert them and have them moving tactically, and then set up a map and have the astral visitors using hidden movement.

If friendly/player(s) figures are the only astral ones and no material figures have Mage Sight, I would just describe the scene and if/when it seems important/fun, lay out figures and a hex map, and let the players place their figures since I'm roleplaying every NPC not seeing them.

i.e. It's not combat until there's going to be an attack or spell or something, and one of the main uses of Astral Projection is to just spy around and not attack. When it becomes combat, it's similar to a combat with invisible figures, except the astral person is also not making sound or physically interacting with things, so the "revealed when adjacent" part doesn't apply.

However it says he can look for traps and read open books, so I guess he is on the melee map. And what does it mean when it says there are no physical barriers on the astral plane. Does that mean you can walk through a wall into a next room? zip through the ceiling into the room above?

I believe so, yes.

Is the Distance is no barrier comment meant to be an instant travel to that place so you don't spend your hour just walking there?

Yes.

These other Astral Walkers that are mentioned a lot because you can fight them. Are they pre-arranged Astral guards defending the room? Are they lost permanent denizens like ghosts who can't find their way back? Are there astral flora and fauna that live in the plane? Can you talk to another just met astral traveler?

These are great questions and so far it is up to the GM. If the GM has not thought about it and developed Astral monsters, inhabitants, hazards, or terrain, then I assume the Astral plane is empty of anything unless someone is using this spell. So mainly there would only be opponents if someone somehow notices an astral visitor (i.e. they cast an observable spell and someone figures it out, or someone uses Mage Sight) and then is able to cast Astral Projection themselves. Which in practice tends to be almost never, except in situations where someone is expecting or deduces what's happening and is capable of casting that spell.

However, as oldwolf mentioned, if wizards using Astral Projection are the only thing that's ever in the Astral plane, then it becomes a very powerful spell that can undermine all sorts of game situations (not to mention the "stories" that some GMs try to organize their games around) because of the many super-easy low-risk spying possibilities that bypass and undermine situations by requiring no travel or navigation and bypassing walls and being almost undetectable. The mischief and mayhem (assassination, arson, sabotage, etc) possibilities are also almost endless and almost impossible to defend against even if you are a wizard with Astral Projection and Mage Sight (which costs 1/minute, so you more or less need a self-powered magic item if you want to be able to use it constantly). Best bet without that is probably using Ward and/or Detect Enemies to tell you when to cast Mage Sight, and/or having people casting Mage Sight periodically but not maintaining it.

My preference is to develop the Astral Plane more, adding creatures and terrain, barriers, ghosts, weather, hazards, etc, and also to add a variety of defensive spells, such as spells that create barriers, alarms, traps, defenses, attacks, and astral monsters that only act on astral travelers.

Personally, I like to develop per-campaign-world mechanics where using Astral Projection attracts forces that make Astral Travel more interesting and dangerous the more they are used, both on a per-caster basis and on a per-destination basis. I see the Astral Plane as immense and projecting into it as making a lot of noise (dinner bell?) that the plane responds to and attracts ... attention. That way Astral Projection is more interesting and more risky to over-use even against non-wizards, and the spells make it more possible for wizards to defend against astral attacks.