Shield of Dawn

4th-level evocation

Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Self
Components: V, S, M (a piece of pale amber or a shimmering insect wing)
Duration: 10 minutes
Classes: cleric, paladin

You create a disk of sunlight on one arm, shedding bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet. You can end the spell early by using an action to dismiss it.

The sunlight provides you with a shimmering shield or a blazing shield, as you choose. The shimmering shield grants you resistance to radiant damage, and the blazing shield grants you resistance to necrotic damage.

In addition, whenever a creature within 5 feet of you hits you with a melee attack, the shield erupts with light. The attacker takes 2d8 radiant damage.

You can only have one instance of this spell in effect at a time. It does not stack with similar damaging aura spells such as fire shield.

At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 and the radius of bright and dim light each increase by 10 feet for every two slot levels above 4th.