Path of the Focused Fury
Barbarians are characteristically fuelled by rage to guide their blades. However, rage affects different people in different ways. The barbarians that follow the Path of the Focused Fury allow their rage to wash over them, but doing so allows them to focus further in battle rather than go fully berserk. They have honed their abilities in order to ensure their allies are protected and are striking at their full capacity, even partially lending them their Barbarian abilities.
Barbarians of the Focused Fury often take on the role of war chief or battlefield commander, their ability to stay calm while letting anger overtake them within allowing them to be excellent directors of combat.
Furious Stratagem
At 3rd level, your rage fuels your focus, allowing you to observe the battlefield and give pointers to your allies, telling them the perfect points to strike.
You can use the Help action as a bonus action. Also, when you use the Help action to aid an ally in attacking a creature while raging, the target of that attack can be within 30 feet of you, rather than 5 feet of you, if the ally can see or hear you. Additionally, if the attack hits, your ally can add your Rage damage bonus to their damage roll.
Also, if that creature makes an attack on their turn, that attack counts as an attack made by you for the purposes of maintaining your Rage.
Additionally, when a creature takes the Help action to aid you in attacking a creature, you can double your Rage damage if you hit with your attacks.
Evasive Orders
At 6th level, you have become adept at looking out for imminent danger coming not just towards you but your allies as well.
When an ally that you can see is about to make a Dexterity saving throw against an effect that you can see, you can use your reaction to allow them to make that saving throw with advantage.
Retained Loyalty
At 10th level, your ability to focus has extended past your rage. Your mind can't be altered and you can't be charmed.
You also gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws if you don't have it already.
Sacrificial Maneuver
At 14th level, your vigilance allows you to predict when enemies will attack, allowing you to pre-emptively protect your allies with your amplified endurance.
While you're raging and an ally within 5 feet of you gets hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to become the target of that attack instead.
Aluminum Can of Endless Cola
Wondrous item, common
This can contains an infinite amount of delicious, chilled, carbonated cola. Even when open, the can won't accept any liquid other than the cola it produces.
This can also has three tablets of mints attached to the side of the can in a secure clear packet. You can expend one of these mints as an action and place it into the can, causing cola to explode forth. All creatures in a 10-foot line in front of you must make a Dexterity saving throw DC 10 or take 1d6 acid damage. You can expend more than one mint, increasing its area of effect by 5 feet and increasing its damage die by an additional 1d6 per mint.
The packet magically restores 1d3 mints per dawn.
Tracksuit of the Shut-In
Wondrous item, uncommon
An extremely comfortable bright colored tracksuit, emblematic of those who, for some reason or another, have devoted themselves to living in their own rooms for the rest of their lives.
While wearing this tracksuit, you recover levels of exhaustion when you finish a short rest. Also, you recover all of your hit dice when you finish a long rest.
Earphones of Shutting Out
Wondrous item, uncommon
Small earphones that plug into the ears. They don't connect to any device nor play any music, but they're often used in order to deter others from speaking to the wearer.
While wearing these earphones, you can't be targeted by harmful effects that affect you if you can hear.
Shintaro Kisaragi in Dungeons and Dragons 5e
Using the 27-point buy system for building stats, and taking into account racial bonuses, Shintaro's starting attributes are as follows:
| Stat | Ability Score | Ability Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 14 | +2 |
| Dexterity | 10 | +0 |
| Constitution | 8 | -1 |
| Intelligence | 16 | +3 |
| Wisdom | 12 | +0 |
| Charisma | 14 | +2 |
Shintaro's story is all about redemption - finding his inner courage to finally fight for something that he truly cares about. Therefore, I've elected to make him a 15th level Redemption Paladin, with 5 levels in Order of Scribes Wizard.
For his starting feat from Custom Lineage, choose Keen Mind, adding +1 to your Intelligence.
For Paladin 4, Paladin 8 and Paladin 12, use those ability score increases to add +2 to your Charisma both times, to end up with 20 Charisma by 12th level.
Wizard 4 can be used for anything, most usefully increase either Strength or Intelligence by +2. Personally, I choose to increase his Strength.
Take the Cloistered Scholar background for proficiency in Arcana. I chose Arcana for a sort of stand-in for technology, since a lot of settings have them be roughly equivalent.
RAW, you can actually swap out any background skills, so swap History for Stealth, representing Shintaro's lack of presence.
For Custom Lineage, take Sleight of Hand. He's pretty good at keeping the fact he's got an anime girl in his pocket at all times, after all.
From the Paladin skill list, take Insight and Persuasion. Shintaro's a bit pathetic to start with, but he's pretty good at reading people - if not a bit pessimistic - and he does get pretty inspiring later on.
Final Scores
| Stat | Ability Score | Ability Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 16 | +3 |
| Dexterity | 10 | +0 |
| Constitution | 8 | -1 |
| Intelligence | 16 | +3 |
| Wisdom | 12 | +0 |
| Charisma | 20 | +5 |
Spell Suggestions
Since Shintaro is being built primarily as a support Paladin, as well as gaining Wizard levels, his spell choice is rather important. The following are spells that I believe are thematically ideal for building our favorite NEET.
Compelled Duel (1st level). While forcing attention on themselves is more his sister's thing, Shintaro's got a way with drawing attention to himself, as evidenced by his outbursts in the mall hostage situation.
Heroism (1st level). Even though it doesn't quite work for an early Shintaro, this spell is essential for after he grows as a character. Red is the color of heroes, after all.
Locate Object (2nd level). Ene can help with this! Use this to locate all the vending machines that serve cola in a thousand-foot radius.
Dispel Magic (3rd level). Always a useful spell. Flavor this as Ene causing interference!
Locate Creatue (4th level). Ene's navigation app! She can help you find people even without Focusing Eyes!
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (4th level). You've got this spell automatically from Redemption Paladin, but I wanted to specially mention it since it's a perfect way to block out anyone from the outside!
Alarm (1st level). Moving on to Wizard spells! Again, use Ene to ward off enemies and see them coming! Also, don't be afraid to take spells that are directly useful to you even if they're less thematically appropriate. The Wizard spell list is much more expansive than Paladin's, so take advantage of that!
Borrowed Knowledge (2nd level). Rather than contacting spirits, contact Google! Or, perhaps flavor this as Retaining Eyes giving you a quick flash of genius!
Enhance Ability (2nd level). Use this to enhance your Intelligence! You could also empower your weaker abilities, but I think Intelligence is excellent for Shintaro.
Clairvoyance (3rd level). Hidden cameras! Or maybe Ene's gone off invading other people's screens for you.
Feign Death (3rd level). Okay, admittedly, this has no reason to be here, but I feel like Shintaro playing dead is... kind of a hilarious visual and almost feels like something he'd do in a situation that wasn't life-or-death.
Explaining the Build
Shintaro is a human, of course, but I used Custom Lineage in order to add +2 to his Intelligence, considering it's one of his defining positive traits.
I suppose if needed, Custom Lineage can be justified as 'Haze-Touched Human'.
Though Shintaro starts off completely uncharismatic, he grows into his own as a de-facto leader in some routes. We're beginning his Charisma relatively low, but we build it up using his later ASIs. As an added thing, Shintaro in the LN seems to at least think he's rather charismatic before Ene gives him a reality check, so I have no doubt that he'd set his own Charisma score to be around 14 despite nobody else in the Dan agreeing.
Shintaro, above all his faults, is extremely intelligent and thus I had to give him a 16 starting Intelligence. His levels in Wizard allow him to use that Intelligence, and also allows for Ene to make a guest appearance as his Manifest Mind ability!
I chose the Keen Mind mainly to replicate the effects of Retaining Eyes, but it's also an excellent translation of his photographic memory!
Besides Redemption Paladin being thematically appropriate, there are some abilities that really stuck out to me as being very Shintaro-like.
Aura of the Guardian
I think that besides him protecting his friends with this feature, this ability also highlights Shintaro's self-destructive nature, especially when fuelled by guilt over letting other people suffer.
Protective Spirit
I like to think of this ability as Ene helping out (for once)! It's a very late game ability, but the two really only ever come to an understanding late in the routes anyways, so it's still pretty suitable!
Channel Divinity: Emissary of Peace
I just wanted to mention this briefly because a friend of mine joked about how Shintaro desperately needs this to function in regular society. I'd say to flavor it as Ene talking in his ear, telling him what to say, but we all know she'd just be laughing at him the entire time instead of being helpful.
Conclusion
While not an optimal build at all, Shintaro isn't exactly an optimal person. However, Redemption Paladin and Order of Scribes Wizard allows you to play a powerful support role, as well as your high Charisma granting nearby allies a +4 bonus to their saving throws.
Tip: Shintaro's low Constitution was chosen to be true to his NEET lifestyle and inability to be outdoors for long periods of time. That being said, it's probably best if you swap his DEX and CON scores if you plan on playing this build, since dumping Constitution in D&D is pretty much a death sentence.
I really had no reason to make his Strength higher other than to make the build not completely useless as primarily a Paladin. That being said, I'm not sure if Shintaro is even physically weak per se. Horrible Constitution, but he does carry Momo a pretty long way during the manga without really complaining.
Tip: As a DM, I've been experimenting with letting players swap around Int, Wis and Cha as spellcasting abilities and I feel like it doesn't actually impact the game all that much. If you want, you could actually instead ask your DM to let you play an Intelligence based Paladin, and invest all the Charisma boosting ASIs entirely into Intelligence instead. While I think building Charisma is a better representation of Shintaro's development, I think in terms of playing a fun, more optimized character, sticking with one ability score is a better choice and I'd argue Intelligence is Shintaro's most consistent score.
