Aetherborn, better than half-elf?

[Jon talks a lot]

Aetherborn is a kaladesh/plane shift race that is very interesting, and surprisingly powerful.

For a long time, it's been understood that half-elves are the best paladin race, but that might not be true.

They have the same ability score increases as the half-elf, dark vision, and while they don't have skill versatility, they get the intimidate skill. However, they also get resistance to necrotic damage, and this is extremely powerful.

What do you guys think? Is this better than Half-Elf?

[CheddarChampion]

If you use the "Customizing your origin" rules from TCoE, plenty of things are competitive with half-elf for a paladin's stats.
Off the top of my head, a mountain dwarf could get +2 Str and +2 Cha, several tool proficiencies, darkvision, and poison resistance.
A variant human could have 16/10/14/8/10/16 w/ Resilient (Constitution) at level one. That's certainly competitive with the other choices.

I don't have the PSZ book, so this info is taken from online:
*Age. Aetherborn come into being as adults and live no more than a few years.
*Alignment. As a rule, aetherborn are driven by hedonism and self-interest, making them neutral at best and thoroughly evil at worst. Neutral aetherborn might devote much of their time (and wealth) to parties and social activity, while evil aetherborn are usually involved in the criminal underworld.
The Aetherborn get the same stat boosts as the half-elf, and the necrotic resistance makes up for having one less skill and not getting fey ancestry. That's mostly a tie IMO.
But the personality/alignment of aetherborn doesn't mesh well with Paladin Oaths, and the very short lifespan make them bad for campaigns that last years in-game.
I say they're worse than half-elves unless you ignore those two things.

[Jon talks a lot]

I mean, that's fair.

But, as a rule, drow are evil. And yet we have Drizz and his hundreds of non-evil copies.

The age thing is much more pressing. However, I raise you the Oath of the Ancients Paladin. One of the subclass features says we suffer none of the effects of ageing, and unlike Timeless Body on the monk, it doesn't specify that you can still die.

If I was to DM an oath of the ancients paladin, that is how I would rule that feature to work.