Astral Travel - duration in real time?

[thalcos]

Building a character with an Astral Projection power (from GURPS Psionic Powers), and had a question I couldn't figure out.

Under Astral Travel, it says you can stay on the astral plane for a given duration (i.e. 30 minutes at level 1). But then it says that the duration is always measured in real time (emphasis in the book). I can't quite grok what this means... like is it real time like Luck, that you can use every hour of table time? That doesn't seem right...

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by thalcos

Building a character with an Astral Projection power (from GURPS Psionic Powers), and had a question I couldn't figure out.

Under Astral Travel, it says you can stay on the astral plane for a given duration (i.e. 30 minutes at level 1). But then it says that the duration is always measured in real time (emphasis in the book). I can't quite grok what this means... like is it real time like Luck, that you can use every hour of table time? That doesn't seem right...

Read the box on "The Inner Astral Plane" on page 28. 30 minutes seems like 5 hours there.

[Stormcrow]

According to GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits, "time in the void of the inner astral plane tends to flow at about 1/10 of the rate of time in the physical world, while the outer astral matches the physical world it is connected to."

The inner astral plane is the void that allows travel between spirit realms. The outer astral plane is usually coincident with a planet's biosphere and is the home of ghosts, spirits, and others who frequently make contact with the material world.

The text from GURPS Psionic Powers is just recognizing that time may not pass at the same rate on the astral plane as on the material plane. If there's any question about it, the advantage makes references to time on the material plane, not on the astral plane.

[thalcos]

Thanks folks - I think the emphasis on "real time" mixed me up.