Not deaf, but pretty close.
Back in the days of 3rd edition you could literally hear normally while on the astral.
Your astral form has normal human senses of sight and
hearing. You can also use assensing to read information from
auras. The astral form cannot taste or smell, although sensory
input that has no equivalent may be translated as such, and it
can only touch other astral objects and beings.
<snip>
Likewise, you
could scan a sheet of paper from astral space and get feelings
of love and longing from it, but you can’t read it to see that it’s
a love letter. Speech and other sounds are as easy to hear from
the astral plane as they are in the physical world.
This was changed in 4th to bring hearing more in line with the other senses as this was a loophole players were swift to pick up on.
It was a bit odd that a projecting mage could sit in on a boardroom meeting from the astral spying and still hear any conversation clear as a bellwhistle while only being able to make out the auras of the living members and unable to read the emotional content of any documents on the table. Remember you are there as a psychic presence, so no real eardrums or eyes there. Thus the change.
Following on this change, in 4th you could still 'hear' sounds to a limited degree, but they are fainter and warped, it is more the emotional content that carries across now just as the other senses operate.
It is also possible to eavesdrop
on the noises, communications, and even smells of the physical
world from the astral plane, but just like reading a physical
book, the assensing character will perceive the emotional tone
and impressions rather than the physical sensation.
This was touched on again in 5th
When astral projecting, you do not hear
the din of the physical world, nor can you read written
words. Technological displays and holographic images
don’t exist even as shadows on the astral plane. All
the lifeless objects in the physical world appear as dull
and intangible shadows to astral forms, allowing them
to easily pass through. Details on these objects (color,
texture, smell) are almost impossible to understand; a
book’s words are impossible to read, as is the context
of the writing unless it’s tied to some emotion that the
character can perceive. All life has intangible auras that
illuminate the astral world, while emotions can color
them. Emotions can also color non-living objects if they
have some significance to metahumanity (individually
or as a whole). Within the silence, the magician can
hear the crackle and hiss of mana being drawn into a
spell or the subtle harmonies or cacophony of aspected
mana as it flows through the astral plane.
Now if the astral projecting mage manifested to make himself seen and heard, I would not have a problem with him seeing and hearing a bit more in line with normal senses.
He is still astral, but one could handwave it as being more aligned with the material place, but your GM may still call it astral senses only, saying your are psychically speaking and hearing so always check ahead as YMMV..
Believe there was a thread somewhere where someone was asking if he manifested could he then stick just his ear through the wall behind a plant (to hide the sight of a ghostly ear sticking out of the wall) to listen in.
