SRM5: Is the Street Shaman Template Correct?

Back when I was calibrating my Shadowrun Missions character, Nox the human combat mage, I discovered the template within core rule book was not correct as the template was missing material. Was my intention that I would perform further analysis of each template to see if it is correct. Since my next Shadowrun Missions session is this Monday I figured it's time for another installment.


The template in question: The Street Shaman


Disclaimer: as the current Shadowrun Missions campaign is located in Chicago which has a background count starting at a 2 rating, I certainly would not play a full magician that has Magic Rating of 3. Since the Street Shaman template has a heavy Seattle-flavor, I'd play it there. That said, it does serve as an excellent example of what a high attribute, high skill elf full magician would look like.


Magic: A Magic Rating of 3? Rating C.


Race: D


Attributes: They add up to priority code A nicely.


Skills: This is where it gets tricky. It's more than what B provides, which meant Karma was spent. However, the skill group total means that priority code B was used.


Resources: E. Uh, yeah, the template has way more than what's listed. Meaning karma was spent. How much? Let's examine everything else.


Qualities: There's a positive imbalance of one point of qualities. Otherwise, positive qualities equal negative qualities. So one point of Karma was spent.


Karma purchases: Other than the one point spent on Positive Qualities, some karma was spent on skills, resources, and contacts. Instead of using a calculator, I estimate 5 Karma was spent on qualities and contacts. Alas, skill advancement at this state follows regular character advancement so I'm guessing 10 Karma here. Finally, just to be on the safe side, I assume another ten Karma was spent to bump up Resources. Again, if you want to be exactly sure how everything is allocated, a calculator is required when figuring out resources and skills total due to Karma expenditure. As characters can start with a small amount of leftover karma, it probably would be wise to.


Verdict: Complete - unlike the Combat Mage in template in the SRM5 Core book, the Street Shaman template is fully completed and playable along the front. Based on estimation, the character appears correctly built. Barring my concerns expressed above, the Street Shaman does fulfill the objective of a template - a pre-generated character ready to be played.