[Mark Hall]

Originally Posted by Lestroisrois

Another question (thanks for answering so fast, by the way):

I've read the section about Astral Projection, but I don't understand the benefits it grants that make the magician worth the 5 BP more than the mystic adept, who has access to the same spellcasting and the adept powers. Can someone explain why Astral Projection is so useful that it's worth the extra BP?

Well, A, it's a 2 point power for Mystic Adepts... if a mage and an adept both want to do it, and are otherwise build identically, the mystic adept will have, effectively, 2 points less of magic. And that's with no other powers at all... just X-2 Magic to the mage's X.

However, Astral Perception (free to Magicians) lets you evaluate people and objects. It is a free "detect magic", and is subtle enough (especially if you've got shades) that you can check people out relatively easily. Want to know if they're normal, magical, cybered, or even human? Assensing is your game.

Astral projection also allows for rapid scouting... somewhat similar to what you can achieve with a drone, but while a drone can ignore magical security but is frequently stymied by more physical security, the astral form can ignore physical security, being stopped by the relatively rarer magical security.

Also, when you reach the higher levels, astral projection allows you to access metaplanes, which are useful for a number of different tricks (like summoning great form spirits).