Astral Projection Question

[rel]

If I am reading Astral projection correctly You remain in astral form only while on the astral plane.

If you go to another plane via a portal or plane shift or whatever your body travels to and replaces your astral form so suddenly it is the real you walking around random plane x.

First of, do I have that right?

Second, if I do have that right what is the point of this spell?

Aside from some fairly niche duplication / cost avoidance cheese I'm not sure what you would use it for.

[Lombra]

Planar travel is a pretty significant thing ya know.

[dreast]

The astral projection spell as described in the PHB and the spell as described in the DMG appear on the face of it to contradict each other.

The PHB spell works as you describe it, and as many have pointed out is strictly worse than the 7th level Plane Shift spell, except it has a "and back again" clause. The DMG in its section on the planes seems to assume it works the way it did back in AD&D 2e, which was one reason it was a level 9 spell. In that version, travelling to any plane via conduits from the Astral Plane (generally the reason you were casting the spell) caused you to construct a native body in the new plane out of native planestuff that was still connected through the astral plane to your original body back on the prime material (or wherever) plane. This was particularly huge for Planescape campaigns, since it meant that access to the spell meant you could adventure in other planes without any risk to yourself (of course, this was something that the VILLAINS generally took advantage of). Furthermore, death of this "native body" or ending the spell caused all of the gear you'd collected to travel with your spirit back to your original body, allowing you to get both gear and XP with no actual risk (which seems strong... but it's a 9th level spell!), at least until whatever planar entity you'd angered came a-knockin'.

I use the old AD&D 2e version in my games simply because it's not THAT different but it justifies the 9th level slot.

[rel]

Ah, got it. The 3.x version also worked that way except I don't think you could drag loot back to your real body at the end.

[dreast]

I may be misremembering whether it allowed loot hauling. Fortunately, loot is much less important in 5e than plot furthering and XP, so it shouldn't matter so much either way you want to run it.