Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at an Iconic Design for Yoh, the Shaman King.

I’m going to be honest; I have no idea who Yoh Asakura is, only watched a few fight scenes to get a feel for his abilities and powers, and overall would not consider myself a fan of this anima; I am doing Yoh as a fan request.

Let’s see how badly I can botch up your childhoods in today’s Iconic Design!

Background

From Wikipedia:

Yoh is the protagonist of Shaman King and he possesses an overly laid-back personality and lazy demeanor. He is, however, noted as being a perceptive individual who is generally able to remain cool under pressure. His most distinctive trait is a pair of orange headphones and a necklace with three bear claws, both which he wears almost constantly; his usual attire consists of his school uniform with his shirt unbuttoned along with a pair of sandals. He is the latest descendant and heir to the Asakura family, a prestigious family of shaman whose lineage dates back to the Heian era.

Build Concept

So, now that we’ve gotten Yoh’s backstory down, let’s look at how we’re going to actually make this build work.

• Oracle (Spirit Guide): Believe it or not, but the Pathfinder Shaman isn’t a particularly strong choice for Yoh. In the Anime, Yoh only really communes with a single spirit, and it is impossible to build a spirit like the Great Spirit of Earth if we’re following the Manga. So we’re not going to try to follow it. The spirit guide oracle gives Yoh access to a single spirit starting at 3rd level. This makes sense because even from the beginning of the series, we see that Yoh has had training in shamanisn. Although Yoh has the option to switch around his spirits, he’s pretty much always going to stick with the Battle spirit, and his primary hex is going to be Battle Master; gaining Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization is too awesome not to grab.
• Ancestor Mystery: I find that the ancestor mystery is the best for capturing Yoh’s abilities. From creating a ghostly sword with ancestral weapon to creating mystic spirit armor with spirit shield, the ancestor mystery is pretty spectacular. There are plenty of revelations here that we can use to emulate Yoh’s abilities, and even the mystery spells here are decent.
• Oracle’s Curse: In my opinion, haunted is the best one for Yoh. You can pick whatever you want, of course.

With the core bits out of the way, let’s take a look at Yoh’s progression, shall we?

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: oracle (spirit guide) 7
• Feats: Extra Revelation: voice of the grave (Bonus), Extra Revelation: spirit shield (1st), Weapon Focus: katana (3rd), Power Attack (5th), Furious Focus (7th)
• Abilities: ancestor mystery, bonded spirit, oracle’s curse, orisons, mystery spells (unseen servant, spiritual weapon, heroism), revelations
• Revelations: spirit shield (Bonus), voice of the grave (Bonus), ancestral weapon (1st),
• 3rd-Level Spells Known: heroism, cure serious wounds; prayer, any 1
• 2nd-Level Spells Known: spiritual weapon, cure moderate wounds; any 3
• 1st-Level Spells Known: unseen servant, cure light wounds; bless, divine favor, moment of greatness, protection from evil, any 1
• Orisons Known: any 7

Let’s get one thing straight: if you’re playing this build for yourself, you are NOT taking voice of the grave as your extra revelation. You’re picking either spirit shield or ancestral weapon because they’re the key pieces of this build at the early levels. So don’t do that. But the choice is too thematic for Yoh to pass up on.

For those of you who wanted to know, ancestral weapon creates a scaling weapon based off of your ancestors’ favored weapons, which you have full proficiency with. This is our default ability for expanding how Yoh manages to power up his weapon as he does in the series. Spirit shield is basically a better mage armor, especially as you level up. This means that you have all the defense of a Pathfinder character in all the lack-of-armor of a Japanese cartoon character. Early on, we focus on getting Yoh some combat options, because he’s likely going to spend most of his spells buffing his attack bonus with spells like bless. Power Attack is helpful. The ancestor mystery has some legitimately good options for you to choose from, so we’re taking Extra Revelation twice.

From the battle spirit, we get extra attacks of opportunity from battle master and add the battle spirit’s list of bonus spells to the oracle’s spell list for the day. For Yoh, this means that he gets enlarge person (awesome!), fog cloud (okay), and magic vestment (meh). He also gets unseen servant, spiritual weapon, and heroism from his mystery, so all in all Yoh is rocking some great bonus spells. Does it get any better than use? Follow us to the mid levels and see for yourself.

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: oracle (spirit guide) 14
• Feats: Extra Revelation: voice of the grave (Bonus), Extra Revelation: spirit shield (1st), Weapon Focus: katana (3rd), Power Attack (5th), Furious Focus (7th), Extended Spell (9th), Critical Focus (11th), Quicken Spell (13th)
• Abilities: ancestor mystery, bonded spirit, oracle’s curse, orisons, mystery spells (unseen servant, spiritual weapon, heroism, spiritual ally, telekinesis, greater heroism, ethereal jaunt), revelations
• Revelations: spirit shield (Bonus), voice of the grave (Bonus), ancestral weapon (1st), spirit of the warrior (11th)
• 7th-Level Spells Known: ethereal jaunt, mass cure serious wounds; any 1
• 6th-Level Spells Known: greater heroism, mass cure moderate wounds; any 2
• 5th-Level Spells Known: telekinesis, mass cure light wounds; breath of life, any 2
• 4th-Level Spells Known: spiritual ally, cure critical wounds; divine power, speak with haunt, any 2
• 3rd-Level Spells Known: heroism, cure serious wounds; prayer, any 3
• 2nd-Level Spells Known: spiritual weapon, cure moderate wounds; any 5
• 1st-Level Spells Known: unseen servant, cure light wounds; bless, divine favor, moment of greatness, protection from evil, any 1
• Orisons Known: any 9

This build is weird, because after 7th level you just sort of … stop needing feats for a while. It isn’t that there aren’t good feats to choose from; there certainly are. It’s just that there’s nothing you really NEED to make this build work, especially at 9th level. As a result, I personally chose Extend Spell because I think that making buffs last longer is a great thing, but I’m giving you a freebee at 9th level to choose what you want (maybe you could add in the comments what YOU’D give Yoh/your character). I pretty much did the same thing at 13th level, though I took Quicken Spell because of how powerful it becomes with moment of greatness later (see below). At 11th level, however, Yoh gains the spirit of the warrior revelation, which is this FANTASTIC revelation that temporarily gives Yoh some massive benefits, including free Improved Critical with one weapon of his choice. As a result, I elected to take Critical Focus at 11th level, which’ll make confirming those crits even easier.

As soon as this phase of the game begins, your battle spirit gives you Weapon Specialization with a weapon of your choice, which is awesome. At 7th level, the oracle gains the battle spirit’s spirit ability, which is basically a better version of the ancestor domain’s blood of heroes ability. (I say its better because the spirit ability version has more uses per day, but is otherwise identical.) Regardless, that spirit ability meshes FANTASTICALLY with the moment of greatness spell that I asked you to take at 1st level. Basically, you can use moment of greatness to allow you and each of your allies to double that morale bonus that you’re getting from your battle spirit’s ability. Since the bonus isn’t great, doubling it is pretty awesome. Combining moment of greatness with Quicken Spell can make for some clutch bonuses on attack rolls and damage rolls. Don’t get me started if you also elect to grab a courageous weapon, like maybe a courageous buckler….

Aside from that, Yoh’s build is pretty standard for a combat-focused oracle. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m leaving most of Yoh’s spells known choices pretty open-ended; that’s because there isn’t much that could be described as a “spell” that Yoh does in the manga or anima, so you’re pretty free to do what you want with this build. With that in mind, let’s wrap it up in the end-game.

Side note: The battle spirit spells that Yoh has are: enlarge person, fog cloud, magic vestment, wall of fire (great), righteous might (FANTASTIC), mass bull’s strength (meh), and control weather (thematic).

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: oracle (spirit guide) 20
• Feats: Extra Revelation: voice of the grave (Bonus), Extra Revelation: spirit shield (1st), Weapon Focus: katana (3rd), Power Attack (5th), Furious Focus (7th), Extended Spell (9th), Critical Focus (11th), Quicken Spell (13th), ANY FEAT, Staggering Critical, ANY FEAT (19th)
• Abilities: ancestor mystery, bonded spirit, final revelation, oracle’s curse, orisons, mystery spells (unseen servant, spiritual weapon, heroism, spiritual ally, telekinesis, greater heroism, ethereal jaunt, vision, astral projection), revelations
• Revelations: spirit shield (Bonus), voice of the grave (Bonus), ancestral weapon (1st), spirit of the warrior (11th), spirit walk (19th)
• 9th-Level Spells Known: astral projection; any 3
• 8th-Level Spells Known: vision, mass cure critical wounds; divine vessel, any 2
• 7th-Level Spells Known: ethereal jaunt, mass cure serious wounds; any 3
• 6th-Level Spells Known: greater heroism, mass cure moderate wounds; any 3
• 5th-Level Spells Known: telekinesis, mass cure light wounds; breath of life, any 4
• 4th-Level Spells Known: spiritual ally, cure critical wounds; divine power, speak with haunt, any 2
• 3rd-Level Spells Known: heroism, cure serious wounds; prayer, any 3
• 2nd-Level Spells Known: spiritual weapon, cure moderate wounds; any 5
• 1st-Level Spells Known: unseen servant, cure light wounds; bless, divine favor, moment of greatness, protection from evil, any 1
• Orisons Known: any 9

Alright, so let’s start by looking at Yoh’s final list of battle spirit spells: enlarge person, fog cloud, magic vestment, wall of fire , righteous might, mass bull’s strength, control weather, earthquake, storm of vengeance.

Overall, not a bad list of bonus spells to be earned. Additionally, the oracle gains the absolutely wonderful enemies’ bane greater spirit ability, which is basically an inquisitor’s bane, except it improves if the oracle is already wielding a bane weapon. Very helpful, very effective.

The build doesn’t need much in the end game, nor does it gain much for the last few levels of its life. The most noteworthy ability that Yoh gains is, obviously his final revelation, which reads as follows for the ancestor mystery:

Upon reaching 20th level, you become one with the spirits of your ancestors. You gain a bonus on Will saving throws equal to your Charisma modifier, blindsense out to a range of 60 feet, and a +4 bonus on your caster level for all divination spells. You can cast astral projection as a spell-like ability once per day without requiring material components.

The magic stuff is alright, but Charisma to Will saves and blindsense is incredible. This isn’t the most powerful final revelation, but its certainly not bad.

And that’s my build for the Shaman King, who ironically isn’t a shaman. What do you think? Would you have gone shaman? Would you have done something else? Would you use this build? (I was getting a STRONG urge to play this one in PFS as I was writing it, so maybe I will!) Leave your answers and questions below, and I’ll see you next time for another installment of Iconic Design. Take care!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex’s favorite color is blue and his favorite Pathfinder Race/Class combination is kitsune spirit guide, because all of my friends at the Philly PFS know that’s TOTALLY what I would end up making.