[Base] The Astre (PEACH)

[DracoDei]

d4 HD, no armor, and the best AC granting spells available are Shield of Faith and Protection from Chaos/Evil/Good/Law for a +2 deflection bonus... assuming they don't have spell-failure for armor with their divine spells? This guy is better off wearing armor anyway at lower levels and risking the arcane spell failure chance for his 2nd and higher level spells (save the 0th ones for utility casting when in a defensible position). The same would go for the 1st level spells, except that one can cast Floating Disk a few times a day and call it better than a sharp stick in the eye.... Tiny Hut for your 1st 3rd level arcane spell slot at level 5... about level 6 you might start having the AC spells and items to risk going armor-less (Bracers of Armor +1, which I THINK you can stack with Magic Vestment, but I am not sure... Amulet of Natural Armor maybe... and use Shield of Faith at the start of significant fights).

Of course, all this goes out the window if you have a wizard or sorcerer in the party who recognizes a superior beat-stick when they see one and spares you a Mage Armor when necessary (probably at least once an adventuring day).

And now I notice the all-poor saves... err... yeah, that is going to hurt, especially at higher levels.



If you feel like doing my brain a favor, you smooth out the Searing Blast progression by adding the following steps:
Searing Blast 3/day at 4th level (or 3rd and move Astral Glimmer to 4th)
Searing Blast 5/day at 9th level (or 8th and move Astral Glow to 9th)
Searing Blast 7/day at 12th level
Searing Blast 9/day at 18th level
Epic progression recommended: Every even level after hitting Epic: 22nd, 24th, 26th, etc, etc

Astral Glimmer (Sp): The Astre can make his soul seep out of his body. Triggering this ability and closing it are both swift actions. As long as this ability is active, the Astre has Fast Healing 1 and opponents using melee skills on him take 1d4 damage, but the Astre cannot Hide, cannot gain any form of concealment or invisibility and opponents gain a +4 to attack against him.

change "closing" to "dismissing".
Well, the 1d4 damage is a joke, but this is pretty good for out of combat healing.


Radiance MAY need an off switch... but given the flavor, maybe not. Don't know how many Evocations are Touch, but, if nothing else, it is nice for handing out Buffs in combat to your allies without drawing AoOs.


Astral Glow currently is halfway decent for causing property damage to wooden and softer objects over a period of time... might want to specifically exclude their equipment or they are going to end up naked a lot. You also repeated the "closing"/"dismissing" error. It still isn't a good idea to activate in combat, so the twice as fast thing isn't a particularly big deal.


Charge Up :is a nice grab-bag of abilities that are useful in odd cases... on clear nights expect them to stargaze to avoid needing to sleep.


Improved Radiance needs to be clarified that it doesn't allow you to target people 10 feet away with "Range: Self" spells... unless you really meant it to, in which case you need to clarify THAT. It wouldn't be overwhelming since they would mostly be using their cleric spells since there are very few Evocation buffs.

Astral Aura is much too dangerous to use for the benefits it provides over Astral Glow in almost all circumstances. One attacker who knows enough to max out their Power Attack and you will regret using this. Sure you can use when you think you are safe, but in most such cases you aren't in so much of a hurry you can't use Astral Glow instead.

Inner Source, Structure: would be Hax on a Batman wizard, or even a Sorcerer. As it is, evocation and buffing need the love. I would even suggest moving some of these "Inner Source" features to earlier levels rather than grouping them so closely. Not sure if Structure is the one you want to give first... actually, yes, I think it is, because it overcomes some very basic problems... at least the SR part. Maybe keep the AMF countering part at this level, but even that requires a will save and if you really meant to keep them at Poor for that then it is probably fine, even with Wisdom as their primary stat.

Inner Source, Cohesion/Inner Source, Expression It is technically "verbal" not "vocal". Again, this is completely Hax... if it weren't for the fact that Evocation is weak.

Inner Source, Perfection: This MIGHT have some cheese, but I don't know what they would be using it for in a major way, since they are limited to cleric spells (say of 8th level or lower in some cases, depending on starting rolls?), arcane Evocations, and 0th level arcane spells. Most cleric spells don't have expensive material components AFAIK.

Greater Radiance Good ability, but I have nothing to say about in especial.

EDIT: I just figured out what to do about the lower levels! Give him Wis to AC as an ARMOR bonus, capped at twice class level. 1st level might still get spent in studded leather or even Hide, but after that they should be good.