How good is Astral Caravan?

[JusticeZero]

I'm a bit hazy on how planar travel, et cetera works. I'm looking at Astral Caravan (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/a/astral-caravan) and Astral Traveler (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/psionic-powers/a/astral-traveler) trying to figure out how effective these powers would be as regards mobility to other points in the Prime Material; can one blip across the world in one trip with a map prepared, or does it have to be a two step trip, or is that power unsuited for overland travel entirely for other reasons? How long does the trip take, and how risky is it exactly?

[Verence]

The maximum length of the trip is unlimited. Every 24 hours (or every 12 hours if using augmented version) you make a Knowledge (planes) check, and you need 6 successful checks in a period of 12 consecutive days to arrive to your destination, so the minimal travel time is 3 days, if you use the augmented version and success on all checks in a row.
Also you arrive 10-1000 miles (10d%) from your destination, which is twice as imprecise as Planal Travel (Plane Shift), so it is absolutely not useful for travelling from Point A to Point B.
And finally, all other travellers will have to waste the power known slot for Astral Traveler, and it's bad.

About risks: it is fully on the DM. You are travelling for 3 (or more) days through he Astral Plane and can encounter anything that exists there.

I suggest using Planar Travel. Standard action for manifesting, instanteneous arrival, augment for precision and no prerequisites for other travellers. Much better.

[JusticeZero]

Also you arrive 10-1000 miles (10d%) from your destination, which is twice as imprecise as Planar Travel (Plane Shift), so it is absolutely not useful for traveling from Point A to Point B.
Holy heck, that's substantially bigger than the entire campaign map. Is there any way of narrowing that down at all? Otherwise they would have a large chance of ending up off the edge of the map on that 505 mile radius circle trying to return. (10d100 is going to put them very close to 505 miles exactly off target every time with an extremely leptokurtic curve, and the map area is only about 400 miles from edge to edge)

[NEO|Phyte]

And finally, all other travellers will have to waste the power known slot for Astral Traveler, and it's bad.

Astral Traveler is a touch spell. But yeah, while a neat idea in general, Astral Caravan isn't all that good, but I guess that's why it's two levels lower than Psionic Plane Shift.

[Verence]

In this power I don't see any ways of narrowing the result.
Planar Travel has initial range of 5d% and you can further augment it for precision: each 2PP = one d% less to roll, to a maximum of 0 (fully precise arrival).

Also, I made a mistake: the description of Astral Caravan says "d% * 10", not 10d%, so it's completely random without any curve. But in Planar Travel it still is 5d%, not d% * 5.


Astral Traveler is a touch spell.Thank you, didn't notice that. But it has a manifesting time of 1 hour, and I think that it should be completed while the leader manifests Astral Caravan (the description says that the power allows the target to join the existing caravan, so you can't manifest it prior to manifesting Astral Caravan, and when the Astral Caravan is completed, all party embarks to Astral Plane and it seems to be too late to join), but here I can be wrong.

[JusticeZero]

I'm a bit curious whether there's a reason that it typically drops people so far away that most people in the drop point will neither share a language with nor know how to get to the destination.

[Verence]

I'm a bit curious whether there's a reason that it typically drops people so far away that most people in the drop point will neither share a language with nor know how to get to the destination.
It seems that planar travel spells and powers weren't designed for travelling to the Prime Material Plane or exact spots on another planes. They are more like "Ah, well, now we are in the Abyss. But where in the Abys are we?"

[Psyren]

You should probably be thinking of this more as "Psionic Shadow Walk" than any form of Plane Shift.



Thank you, didn't notice that. But it has a manifesting time of 1 hour, and I think that it should be completed while the leader manifests Astral Caravan (the description says that the power allows the target to join the existing caravan, so you can't manifest it prior to manifesting Astral Caravan, and when the Astral Caravan is completed, all party embarks to Astral Plane and it seems to be too late to join), but here I can be wrong.

I'm not sure how you came to this conclusion; I don't see the word "existing" anywhere in Astral Traveler. You can pre-manifest it just fine.

It'll take a long time to hit the whole party if you're the only Psion, but presumably if you're using this you have a long trip to take regardless.


I'm a bit curious whether there's a reason that it typically drops people so far away that most people in the drop point will neither share a language with nor know how to get to the destination.

Bluntly, because planar travel is supposed to be dangerous/risky and give the DM opportunity to insert plot hooks/random encounters. By building that risk into the power, they give the DM more agency to choose whether the party encounters hazards or not. If the power was risk-free and the DM incorporated hazards, many parties would cry foul; but if the power is risky and the DM chooses not to have the party run into anything, they will likely be relieved.

Note that even Plane Shift has a chance of dropping you off-target - only Gate, a 9th-level spell, has perfect precision.

[Segev]

I've never understood how the 1st level power that lets you tag along is ever worth the power known slot, myself. :( It literally does nothing by itself. This seems wasteful.

[Psyren]

I've never understood how the 1st level power that lets you tag along is ever worth the power known slot, myself. :( It literally does nothing by itself. This seems wasteful.

The short answer is that you're right, it's not, but thankfully you shouldn't need to blow a slot on it.

It's a generalist power; furthermore, it's on the psywar and psyrogue lists too. (Poor Lurk!) This means that almost any psionic character in the party can touch the Nomad/Erudite (who are likely the only ones who bothered to learn it) and manifest it from his mind without wasting their own PK slots on it. They can also manifest it from power stones (or he can manifest it from a stone on them), or pass a dorje around etc., before making their trip.

(It's part of the Planes Mantle too; whether this means you need that mantle to consider it on your list or not is unclear, like much else concerning Ardents and Divine Minds.)

In any case, 25 gp for a planar trip isn't bad for a low level party.

[Rubik]

I've never understood how the 1st level power that lets you tag along is ever worth the power known slot, myself. :( It literally does nothing by itself. This seems wasteful.As I've said before on these forums, I know Lycanthromancer in real life, and I've talked to him about the powers in his psionic powers revision. This is why he pushed Astral Traveler down to a 0 level Talent, and furthermore, he pushed it down to being the absolute cheapest he could, at 1 quantum point.

It's just not worth anything, otherwise, though I suppose having some power stones around could work; they're cheap enough.

[Segev]

...huh. You know, by the RAW (and clearly not by RAI), Astral Caravan requires that all touched creatures to accompany the Nomad have "each manifested Astral Traveler." While Astral Traveler says you can manifest it on others to enable them to hitch a ride, Astral Caravan says they have to have manifested it themselves.


Honestly, Astral Caravan should just have made you able to take the "touched" creatures along, regardless of Astral Traveler.

Astral Traveler probably shouldn't exist, or should be Nomad 1, Psion/Wilder 3, Psychic Warrior 3 (maybe 2?); it should allow the manifester (only) to enter the Astral Plane. Manifesting Astral Traveler should allow you to hitch onto an Astral Caravan without counting against the total, and Astral Caravan should be faster/better/safer travel than Traveler.

[Psyren]

...huh. You know, by the RAW (and clearly not by RAI), Astral Caravan requires that all touched creatures to accompany the Nomad have "each manifested Astral Traveler." While Astral Traveler says you can manifest it on others to enable them to hitch a ride, Astral Caravan says they have to have manifested it themselves.

I noticed that too, however that doesn't actually override Astral Traveler's clause that it makes you eligible to participate in an Astral Caravan. And again, if your DM forces the issue, most psionic classes can manifest it out of the caravan-leader's mind anyway without needing to learn it themselves, or from a stone.

[unseenmage]

Note that even Plane Shift has a chance of dropping you off-target - only Gate, a 9th-level spell, has perfect precision.

Just a nitpick, Wish is also pinpoint precise. Even more so than Gate as Wish cuts through attempts to block planar travel.

[Psyren]

Just a nitpick, Wish is also pinpoint precise. Even more so than Gate as Wish cuts through attempts to block planar travel.

Point - but as Wish is also 9th level, that doesn't actually change the substance of my post :smalltongue:

And I'll throw in Miracle, Reality Revision etc. while we're at it.

[Segev]

I noticed that too, however that doesn't actually override Astral Traveler's clause that it makes you eligible to participate in an Astral Caravan. And again, if your DM forces the issue, most psionic classes can manifest it out of the caravan-leader's mind anyway without needing to learn it themselves, or from a stone.

Oh, sure. And as I noted, the RAI are very clear, here, so it's not like it's a problem in real play. Just an oddity. I'd have to compare to 3.0 to see if it's a c/p error. Perhaps Traveler used to be Personal only.

[unseenmage]

Point - but as Wish is also 9th level, that doesn't actually change the substance of my post :smalltongue:

And I'll throw in Miracle, Reality Revision etc. while we're at it.

Darn, I forgot about those.
Isn't there a Greater Plane Shift squirreled away somewhere too? IIRC it reads like Plane Shift and Gate had a very precise baby.

[Venger]

Darn, I forgot about those.
Isn't there a Greater Plane Shift squirreled away somewhere too? IIRC it reads like Plane Shift and Gate had a very precise baby.

Yes, it's in the spell compendium on p 159. it's identical to plane shift, but if you've visited the place you're going before, you suffer no miss chance at all. it's a cleric 7, sor/wiz 8.

[Psyren]

Notice that here again you have to have been there once before - requiring the hazardous trip to have taken place at some point.

[Chronos]

Quoth JusticeZero:

(10d100 is going to put them very close to 505 miles exactly off target every time with an extremely leptokurtic curve,...
I don't think that word means what you think it means. 10d[anything] is going to be extremely close to a Gaussian, which means that it'll have an excess kurtosis of zero. The plain word "narrow" would be much more appropriate here than "leptokurtic". And the standard deviation of 10d100 is actually going to be about 91, which is probably wider than you were thinking of when you said "very close to 505 miles exactly".

[Venger]

Notice that here again you have to have been there once before - requiring the hazardous trip to have taken place at some point.

Well, yeah. It's not a great spell for that, but it functions as sort of a word of recall plus. Is it great to get to adventuring locations? Not really. As you said, it's sort of awful for that. However, it's pretty decent at doing the opposite and letting you get back to base when you're low on hp/supplies/etc.

[Lord Haart]

Astral Caravan is exactly as good as the ability to pop into the game, look around, say "You know, to Hell with this module" and make DM eat everything he'd pre-planned while the party goes off exactly to where you've said — all on ECL 5 (which seems to be earlier than other ways to do it, and a lot of games i participate in begin at ECL 5-6). Personally, i've never mustered enough cruelty to actually use it, but there's no better way to make people nice to each other than good old mutually assured destruction (of fun).

[Emperor Tippy]

It's the lowest level method of planar travel.

Maxed Knowledge (The Planes) at level 5 without getting into magic items is 7 (ranks)+ 5 (Int) + 3 (psicrystal) + 2 (masterwork tool) +2 (aid another, Psicrystal), or +19 total and you can take 10 on the check.

If you pick up a likeness or picture of your destination (or have an object from there) then you will auto succeed on checks for even a secondhand destination.

Or you could spend a feat to pick up the +2.

Up your ML by 2 so that you can augment and you will reach any destination that you know about in 3 days (two checks per day, you auto-succeed, you need 6 checks total).

Sure it will generally drop you around 500 miles from your destination but that's not so bad if you are talking continental (or even interplanatary) distances, and again it is the lowest level method of getting to whatever plane you want to be on.

It's also the cheapest method to get to the Astral Plane if that is what you want, and it can do that instantly.

[JusticeZero]

Would it be reasonable to make permanent linked landmarks connecting points on the Astral to Prime Material locations, as expensive built installations? Or would travel within the Astral itself be easy enough to turn that into Tippyverse teleportation links? Otherwise, I need to increase the accuracy enough to make sure a return trip is more than 40% survivable on return. (500 miles away from the city in the center of the campaign map in the north or west puts you on the wrong side of a high radiation area, east or south drops you in deep ocean.)

[Maginomicon]

The Cynosure spell (Dragon Magazine #338 page 77) cuts the inaccuracy of all planar travel effects to a fraction of what's normal. Granted that's a 4th-level spell IIRC, so eh.

[Tvtyrant]

One advantage of Astral Caravan is it would allow for planar travel even in E6. It would actually be a pretty fun campaign IMO.

[JusticeZero]

That's actually the intent. Nonetheless, right now I am looking at a RAW 70% chance of going off the map on return, and the map has 'hard' edges.

'Soft' edges would be like "This is a map of Texas - if you walk too far south you'll be in Mexico", and 'Hard' edges are like "This is a map of Hawaii - if you walk too far south, you fall in the ocean". A soft edge means you are going to have an interesting trip, and a hard edge won't get you home.

[Urpriest]

That's actually the intent. Nonetheless, right now I am looking at a RAW 70% chance of going off the map on return, and the map has 'hard' edges.

'Soft' edges would be like "This is a map of Texas - if you walk too far south you'll be in Mexico", and 'Hard' edges are like "This is a map of Hawaii - if you walk too far south, you fall in the ocean". A soft edge means you are going to have an interesting trip, and a hard edge won't get you home.

This reveals an odd problem. In 3.5, you can't Teleport or Plane Shift to a position where you would fall into the ocean, because Conjuration cannot bring something into being on a surface incapable of supporting it. That said, that rule was brought over to Metacreativity, but not to Psychoportation. So I think even in 3.5, you can use Psychoportation powers to put things in places where you wouldn't be allowed to Teleport them with spells. Weird.

[JusticeZero]

Right. Well furthermore, there are large areas of the map where that radius would drop people which would be, at those distances and exposures, akin to dropping them onto the surface of the Moon or into the Positive Material Plane - surfaces which can support the object but not long term unprotected life.

[nobodez]

****, 10d% has a very good chance, since psychoportation doesn't have the safe landing clause of conjuration, of placing you outside of your PMP planetary atmosphere.

Reminds me of the time a used Plane Shift to escape from a demiplane the party was adventuring on, ended up a couple hundred miles from where I wanted, luckily I had a teleport prepared to get me where I needed to go. That, and I was using magic, so no unsafe drops into outer space.

[Sith_Happens]

Would it be reasonable to make permanent linked landmarks connecting points on the Astral to Prime Material locations, as expensive built installations?

Just use color pools (opaque portals between the Astral and other planes, which can be one-way; see Manual of the Planes for details).

[Psyren]

If you have the kind of DM that would actually roll you into the Twisting Nether or whatever, just don't use the power.

[Maginomicon]

Just use color pools (opaque portals between the Astral and other planes, which can be one-way; see Manual of the Planes for details).

*reads*

O_O

YOINK!

I'm totally stealing that facet of the Astral Plane for my main campaign. It makes non-mundane interplanetary/interstellar travel function actually viable.

(Think D&D in space but nowhere remotely like Spelljammer)

[JusticeZero]

I have not had said manual in a while, so don't recall how mobile/variable those are. (I remember what they are, but not anything about their formation/dissipation, nor how much info you can get out of one without entering.)