Low-Point Dungeon Fantasy RPG Option 2: Dungeon Fantasy 15 Henchmen

As I mentioned last time, I'm looking at different ways to run a Dungeon Fantasy RPG game with PCs starting at 150 points plus 25 points of disadvantages and 5 points of quirks, versus the default 250 + 50 + 5.

The second source of lower-point Dungeon Fantasy templates for GMs too lazy to make their own is the most official one: Dungeon Fantasy 15 Henchmen, by Peter V. Dell'orto and Sean Punch.  It features 10 125-point templates: Agent, Apprentice, Archer, Brute, Cutpurse, Initiate, Killer, Sage, Skirmisher, and Squire.  (It also features 5 62-point templates, but that's probably going below the First-Level D&D novice adventurer power level I'm looking for, into Zeroth-Level Dungeon Crawl Classics Funnel Victim power levels.)  Note that 125 + 50 + 5 is about the same power level as 150 + 25 + 5, so these 125-point templates are just about right for my purposes.  All I need to do is tell the players to only spend half as many points on disadvantages.

So, do they work for lower-powered PCs?  I think so.  The templates have different names than the ones in DFRPG, but that's merely a cosmetic issue.  It's pretty obvious which low-powered templates fill the roles of which high-powered templates, and if it's not, there's a sidebar that makes it clear.  So the question becomes, are these templates good for starting PCs?  Are they fun?

Let's take a quick look at the Apprentice template as an example.  ST 10, DX 11, IQ 13, HT 11, FP 12, and the pre-Wizard version (there are other kinds of Apprentices) has either Magery 3, or Magery 2 and 10 spells.  That's 125 points spent, leaving 21 points for attributes/advantages/spells and 26 points for primary/secondary/background skills.  That feels like a pretty solid pre-Wizard to me.  As with the DFRPG templates, you're forced to put some points into skills that might not be your first choice, rather than just more spells.  Like the core classes in college that you didn't want to take, it probably builds character.

So, should we just go with the DF15 templates?  The advantage is that they're well-designed, well-defined, and well-tested, with minimal house rules needed.  (I haven't used the DF15 templates for PCs before, but I have used them for NPCs, both henchmen/hirelings and enemies, and I've been happy with them.)  The disadvantage (unless you're Steve Jackson Games or the authors) is that all the players would need to own a copy of DF15, in addition to DFRPG.  It's only $8 for the PDF, though, so this probably won't be a huge deal.

I think the DF15 templates are a legitimately solid option, but I still want to look at two more before making a final choice: Five Easy Pieces from Pyramid, and classic GURPS freeform characters without templates.