2 thoughts on “Knows somebody the Fourth World Earthdawn Hack?”

  1. It looks to me like the narrative effects are different.

    Astral Sight requires that you have the ability to view the astral plane, so it builds that in. It also has this effect: “While astral sight is active, you may interact with (and injure) astral creatures, and they you.” (It also gives you some mechanical bonuses and penalties.)

    Detect Magic has this effect: “One of your senses is briefy attuned to magic. The GM will tell you what here is magical.”

    I’m not familiar with Earthdawn, but an outside reading suggests to me that there’s some difference between astral things and magical things.

    Astral Sight is used to interact with the astral (and also entails “viewing the astral plane”). Detect Magic is separately used to find out whether there’s anything magical around. If an astral thing is also magical (maybe they all are?) then Detect Magic will also reveal that astral thing, but won’t necessarily let you interact with it.

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