SR5 Rant: Incomplete Combat Mage Template

In anticipation of my second Shadowrun Missions (SRM) session, I was going finally write about my first SRM session and take advantage of the one-time free character tinkering that SRM allows after one's first session. I absolutely love templates especially for complex games such as Shadowrun. New to Shadowrun? Here, pick a template. Don't need to know too much about the system in order to create a functioning character. I'd recommend them all the time back when I ran third edition.


Flash-forward to fifth edition. Fifth edition changes quite a bit. Enough that I figured the best way not to get lost in rules changes was to follow my third edition recommendation. I selected the Combat Mage template. Okay, maybe not exactly. I decided to play the Hero Labs pregen that I selected during the Shadowrun one-off month ago. During the first SRM session, I was struck by the sensation that the Hero Labs-generated character had more than the template. Upon scanning the template, my suspicions were confirmed. The template had less stuff. Much less.


So I spent time perusing the character creation section in order to recreate the template. After all, can't make any changes unless I know whether the Hero Lab PC is more powerful than a starting character. It wasn't. In fact, the template was. Okay, the template isn't weaker. It is incomplete. Absolutely hate that. Fine. Perhaps, it's a first printing error? Upon checking the errata, it isn't. The Combat Mage template in the SR5 is an incomplete character. So much for time savings.


What's missing? For starters, the template does not include the bonus special attribute point that Human PC's receive at priority E. Second, only twenty four points of skills are accounted for. The corresponding column for the closest category also states that the character receives two unspent skill group points. Third, not all of the 25 Karma available for character creation is spent. Customization is nice and everything but the karma expenditures at this stage follow the character advancement rules. Sort of. I'd forgive this if the template had an unspent karma section. Fourth, the worst for last, less than half of the templates starting nuyen is spent! Shadowrun is a skills and gear game! Furthermore, the focus of Shadowrun is not just adventuring but adventuring to live. New players can get lost. Forget about time savings.


In the end, I've decided not to tinker with the Hero Labs character after all. What concerns me is if the combat mage is incomplete, are any of the other templates as well? So, I plan on scouring over the templates and blogging about any inconsistencies with character generation rules in future installments.


For the time being, I look forward to playing some Shadowrun tonight. Happy gaming!