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Sactheminions
2007-01-08, 02:07 PM
Is it just me, or are the racial paragon classes on the SRD really, really good? As in, no way you'd ever fail to take one good? I was just playing with some ideas from Complete Mage (my new toy) and realized that virtually everything is accessible through Human Paragon at a cost of one level of spell progression, for which you get a +2 ability, a feat, and Adaptive Learning.

Suddenly all the Rogue-skill classes are accessible through Human Paragon without having to take Rogue levels. Suddenly you can prereq an Abjurant Champion's martial weapon without taking levels in Fighter. I haven't looked at the other Paragons too closely but it appears they have fun applications too. Am I missing something, or do they just assume most DM's will say "no"?

pestilenceawaits
2007-01-08, 02:11 PM
Is it just me, or are the racial paragon classes on the SRD really, really good? As in, no way you'd ever fail to take one good? I was just playing with some ideas from Complete Mage (my new toy) and realized that virtually everything is accessible through Human Paragon at a cost of one level of spell progression, for which you get a +2 ability, a feat, and Adaptive Learning.

Suddenly all the Rogue-skill classes are accessible through Human Paragon without having to take Rogue levels. Suddenly you can prereq an Abjurant Champion's martial weapon without taking levels in Fighter. I haven't looked at the other Paragons too closely but it appears they have fun applications too. Am I missing something, or do they just assume most DM's will say "no"?

I love the paragon classes and I will almost always take them if they are available to my race. Human is one of the better ones in my opinion as well the others are cool but human is great especially for a spell caster of any sort (we houseruled in manifester also)

Thomas
2007-01-08, 02:14 PM
Losing one level of spell progression is considered unacceptable by many (most?) people concerned with character power. It's the only thing that matters, power-wise; the paragon classes don't offer anything that's worth ditching it.

Generally, they're cool, but I've only ever found it useful to give levels in them to one PC. (I statted Rurik Silverhilt as Fig3/Dwarf Paragon 2 or something, with Dwarf Fighter racial substitution levels. Seemed thematically appropriate.)

Also, Rogue levels are better than Human Paragon levels, frankly. The abilities are better. (Unless you want skill points and 2/3 spellcasting levels; but you could just take Ruathar, for 3/3 spellcasting levels.) Most of the racial paragon classes' class abilities suck.

Dark Knight Renee
2007-01-08, 03:01 PM
The only paragon class I ever use is Human paragon, or Half-Orc/Half-Elf paragon if for some reason I want one of those races to qualify for Human. I'm not overly familiar with the others, having read them over only once a few months ago. However, I also use gestalt, so the cost of losing those levels from another class is lessened noticably.

As for human paragon... using three levels to gain a +2 stat boost, bonus feat, two levels of casting (assuming I can cast), d8 HD, 4+Int skills and a class skill that sticks with me for the rest of my career? Yes please.

MrNexx
2007-01-08, 03:10 PM
I even make them slightly better... most of the non-casting ones I assign caster levels to (at the usual +1 at levels 2 and 3), and I let you get those caster levels even without being members of the class previously.