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According to both the D20 SRD and the Pathfinder PRD "Teleportation is instantaneous travel through the Astral Plane."

My question, if a character were already on the astral plane for whatever reason, could he still teleport to another location upon the astral plane provided all the normal restrictions on teleport are still met (knows the location, and technically no bar upon travel to the astral plane)?

(This may have some bearing on pre 3rd Edition don't recall enough of the teleportation rules in those old systems to know; and also no clue regarding teleportation rules for 4E either)

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    \$\begingroup\$ In support of this, the 2nd edition Guide to the Astral plane (Which had a chapter devoted to special spell rules) allows for teleportation without any modifications. Not 3rd edition, but possibly helpful. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rain
    Commented Jul 3, 2011 at 18:51

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Yes, though there are some interesting possibilities here

First we begin with the Astral plane's traits:

  • Subjective directional gravity.

  • Timeless. Age, hunger, thirst, poison, and natural healing don’t function in the Astral Plane, though they resume functioning when the traveler leaves the Astral Plane.

  • Mildly neutral-aligned.

  • Enhanced magic. All spells and spell-like abilities used within the Astral Plane may be employed as if they were improved by the Quicken Spell feat. Already quickened spells and spell-like abilities are unaffected, as are spells from magic items. Spells so quickened are still prepared and cast at their unmodified level. As with the Quicken Spell feat, only one quickened spell can be cast per round.

As a bit of flavourtext, we get:

The Astral Plane is the space between the planes. When a character moves through an interplanar portal or projects her spirit to a different plane of existence, she travels through the Astral Plane. Even spells that allow instantaneous movement across a plane briefly touch the Astral Plane.

From a legalistic standpoint, there are no reason to hinder teleportation via the astral. It can be theorized that due to the timeless nature of the plane combined with the subjective gravity, a teleportation spell could function simply as a transit-system through timeless space-time. Therefore, activating that transit system while within the timeless space-time of the astral has no immediate impact on the spells: they are designed for rapid transit within the astral plane.

From a "this could be interesting to your game" standpoint, you could assert that teleportation spells cast within the astral simply produce violent (if mostly consequence-free) gravity shifts but do not remove the character from play during the transit.

Another potential tweak could be that teleportation within the astral sends to you a real demi-plane, causing the character to have to trek across the demi-plane to reach the terminus of the teleport. Temporal effects are entirely at the DM's discretion here, but there could be some absolutely fascinating consequences for conflict on the astral if this is so.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I like the idea of merely activating a transit system that already exists; although the concept of forcing the character to walk the distance in a demi-plane is an interesting concept as well and makes great adventure fodder that I may have to steal. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jonathan Heady
    Commented Jul 3, 2011 at 15:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ 'twas the intent :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Brian Ballsun-Stanton
    Commented Jul 3, 2011 at 23:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ What people don't know is that everytime a mage teleports a mile away, he's really in the astral plane huffing it by foot. It's just when he teleports to his final destination, due to the timeless attribute, it seems instantaneous. ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – Neil
    Commented Jul 4, 2011 at 10:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Historical note: In earlier editions, it was explicitly stated that in the astral plane, distance isn't part of the plane's physics. The concept of distance exists, so things can still appear to have space between them, but in theory there's nothing stopping a body from suddenly thinking itself somewhere else. (Literally. Non-magical movement speed in the astral was tied to a creature's intelligence score. Golems therefore tended to wobble in place.) \$\endgroup\$
    – GMJoe
    Commented Feb 29, 2016 at 5:54
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Yes, teleportation effects work in the Astral plane. Githyanki are natives of the Astral and have an innate dimension door ability, and dimension door is just a very short range teleport. The only restriction on teleportation is that it can only transport you on the same plane, not to other planes.

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