Racial paragon class build help?

[danielxcutter]

Anyone have advice for making builds for the racial paragon classes? I hear Human Paragon is good for pretty much anything, but I wonder what could be done with the other ones.

[stanprollyright]

Not technically a paragon class, but similar: Ruathar is good for virtually any character that has hung out with elves.

[Troacctid]

Human Paragon is mostly only good if you really need the class skill; it's pretty rare for a build to want it badly enough to lose a level of casting. Aberrant Paragon is kinda meh, but it has good thematic value that other paragon classes often lack. Drow Paragon is kind of free (the first level anyway) if you happen to already be a drow wizard.

[Diovid]

Half-Orc Paragon can used to get Rage without being Chaotic. 1 level of Half-Orc Paragon can also be nice for the intimdate bonus, especially combined with the Menacing Demeanor feat and when using the Desert Half-Orc variant.

Half-Elf Paragon is pretty nice for a diplomancer. It combines well with all the usual tricks (Desert) Half-Elves have available to them in terms of social capabilities, such as the Half-Elf Bard substitution levels, the Sociable Personality feat, the Complementary Insight feat and the like.

Dwarf paragon, Orc paragon and Half-Orc paragon are full bab classes that give proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and light and medium armor (and dwarves even get heavy armor proficiency) so they aren't that much worse than core Fighter I guess, though that says more about core Fighter than about these paragon classes.

I mostly like them for flavor more than for power though.

[A.A.King]

I used Elf Paragon when I wanted to make an Arcane Archer build (I say 'Arcane Archer' build, but of course you only ever get two levels.


This is the important bit of the progression
01. +00.50 Elf Wizard 1 - Collegiate Wizard, Point Blank Shot (Trade-In Scribe Scroll)
02. +01.25 Elf Paragon 1
03. +02.00 Elf Paragon 2 - Practiced Spellcaster (Wizard), Weapon Focus (Long Bow)
04. +02.75 Elf Paragon 3
05. +03.25 Wizard 2
06. +03.75 Elf Wizard 3 - Precise Shot
07. +04.50 Ruathar 1
08. +05.25 Ruathar 2
09. +06.00 Ruathar 3 - Combat Casting
10. +07.00 Arcane Archer 1
11. +08.00 Arcane Archer 2
12. +09.00 Abjurant Champion 1 - Open Feat

If you don't use Fractional BAB you will have to take the first level of Abjurant Champion before Arcane Archer.

My favourite thing of this build is that if you take a Hawk Familiar, then your Elf Bonus + Familiar Bonus x2 (because of Elf Wizard 3 Substitution level), + Elf Paragon's Elfsight feature + Ruathar's Elf wise feature you have a Spot bonus of +12 to Spot before putting in any ranks.


So yeah, Elf paragon is nice if you want a Wizard Archer Gish but overall it is a much weaker version of the Human Paragon: Fixed Skills, Fixed Bonus Feat (which is pretty useless), Fixed Ability Boost and only progresses wizard.

[John Longarrow]

Half Orc Paragon + Orc Paragon lets you get into Frenzied Berserker without taking a level in a base class.

Most of them are only really useful when you need a stat raised, you need a feat you'd otherwise not be able to get at the right time, or if you really need ranks in a specific skill and you can get it by going Paragon. Otherwise they really don't have enough focus to NOT detract from most builds.

[WhamBamSam]

Half-Elf Paragon 1 has a bonus feat which is helpful for a few things, especially if you need two first level feats on a build that uses Elf options. One example that sticks out to me is taking Human Heritage and still having a feat free at first level for Able Learner, so that the build could get into both Arcane Archer and Chameleon.

It's also sometimes handy for builds based around Cha-based skills with the ability score bonus and the boosted racial bonus.

I'm fond of Forestlord Half-Elf Paragon/Dragonblood Sorcerer builds with Aereni Focus (Iaijutsu Focus), to get Iaijutsu Focus, Hide, and Move Silently as class skills for a sort of stealthy gish setup. Iaijutsu Focus, incidentally, is also a favorite skill for Human Paragons to snag.

Half-Elf and Human Paragon bonus feats can also be used to get more precise feat timing, which can be handy for a number of things.

I like Drow Paragon (on LA+0 Drow varieties, natch) in conjunction with Half-Fiend or Half-Fey (perhaps only using a few levels of the template class) to get extra SLA uses. If you also take Magic in the Blood, you can get your 1/day SLAs to 4/day. A personal favorite high-level option is Half-Fiend Template class 1 with Quicken SLA (Unhallow) as its 18th level feat (Quicken SLA lacks the verbiage from Quicken Spell about casting time), to be able to drop an Unhallow as a swift action in every encounter of the day.

[Celestia]

I feel like Human Paragon is kinda like parmesan cheese: it can enhance anything. Yes, yes. You lose a caster level, and that's worse than the Holocaust, apparently. Personally, I think the skills, feat, and ability increase more than make up for it. Plus, because the first level drops spellcasting, you can take it as your first level and get the nice (6 + Int) * 4 skill points, go into your casting class, then finish off Human Paragon for the rest. And if you're a Wizard and reach Human Paragon 3 right away at level 4, then that's a total of 33 extra skill points you're getting from this class (more if you go epic). That's fairly significant. Not to mention the +1 on DCs to (partially) make up for the lost level. And, if worse comes to worse, you can always just spend that bonus feat on Practiced Spellcaster if you're really worked up over the level loss.

The others I rarely ever find to be worth it.

[Pyromancer999]

I feel like Human Paragon is kinda like parmesan cheese: it can enhance anything. Yes, yes. You lose a caster level, and that's worse than the Holocaust, apparently. Personally, I think the skills, feat, and ability increase more than make up for it. Plus, because the first level drops spellcasting, you can take it as your first level and get the nice (6 + Int) * 4 skill points, go into your casting class, then finish off Human Paragon for the rest. And if you're a Wizard and reach Human Paragon 3 right away at level 4, then that's a total of 33 extra skill points you're getting from this class (more if you go epic). That's fairly significant. Not to mention the +1 on DCs to (partially) make up for the lost level. And, if worse comes to worse, you can always just spend that bonus feat on Practiced Spellcaster if you're really worked up over the level loss.

The others I rarely ever find to be worth it.

The lost caster level is about spell progression, not your actual caster level, which is not the best from a TO standpoint and is not recoverable by Practiced Spellcaster. No biggie if you're just taking whatever because you like it.

Also, general advice for taking Human Paragon to completion: A good progression is Human Paragon 1/Spellcasting Class 1/Human Paragon 2 to make maximum use of the last 2/3 of that class. If you use Wizard or Cleric for that, it gets you 2nd level spells, which is nice.

[Troacctid]

And if you're a Wizard and reach Human Paragon 3 right away at level 4, then that's a total of 33 extra skill points you're getting from this class (more if you go epic).
I'm only counting 12 extra skill points (8+2+2). Are you sure you have the math right?

[A.A.King]

I'm only counting 12 extra skill points (8+2+2). Are you sure you have the math right?

Her Post mentioned 6 + Int ((rather than the actual 4 + Int) so already that's an extra 12. But I also think she's counting the extra skill points gained after level 4 from gaining a +2 INT at level 4 (which a straight wizard wouldn't gain). Still can't get it at 33 though.

[stanprollyright]

I'm only counting 12 extra skill points (8+2+2). Are you sure you have the math right?

+ all the skill points (over 20 levels) from the Int bonus. That's 23 more skill points if retroactive, 17 if not. I'm not actually sure which it is.

EDIT: s'ordsage'd

[Celestia]

I'm only counting 12 extra skill points (8+2+2). Are you sure you have the math right?
Extra skill points from the intelligence increase.

Though I did do the math wrong, anyways. That's the problem with being tired. :smallredface: