Solar Shield

Level9

You can coalesce your solar mote around one of your hands, creating a deflecting shield of out of stellar energy. This shield appears to be made of either glowing light or solid darkness, as determined by the appearance of your solar manifestation, but it can take any general shape you desire. Normal defensive implements such as bucklers and kite shields are popular shapes for solar shields, but it is not unheard of for a solarian to bear a solar shield in the form of a shining orrery orbiting their arm, a set of rapidly spinning helicopter blades across their forearm, or stranger barriers. Your solar shield’s general design has no impact on its function, and it doesn’t give the shield any special abilities. Once you’ve selected the general design, you can’t change it until you gain a new solarian level.

Your solar shield grants you a +1 shield bonus to AC (see Shields on page 124), and as a move action you can align the shield to grant you greater protection against one opponent you are observing (Core Rulebook 260), which increases your shield bonus to AC to +2 against attacks from that opponent until the beginning of your next turn. At 5th level and again every 5 levels thereafter, the shield bonus when aligned against one target increases by an additional +1.

You can make unarmed attacks with your solar shield; these attacks are not archaic, and you threaten squares within your reach while it is formed. You can add solarian weapon crystals to your solar shield as if it were a solar weapon, in which case their benefits apply to unarmed attacks you make with the shield. The damage type of these attacks is the same damage type as the type granted by the solarian weapon crystal, and if the solarian weapon crystal does not specify a damage type, it deals bludgeoning damage.

Forming or dismissing a solar shield is a move action that takes the same amount of effort as drawing or sheathing a weapon (and can be combined with a move as a single move action or used with the Quick Draw feat). Your solar shield is automatically dismissed if it ever leaves your hand.