[3.5] Racial Paragon Classes

[Elfin]

Looking at Racial Paragon Classes on the SRD, I couldn't help wondering whether they're worth taking.
Not being much of a charop expert myself, I turn to the Playground- are Racial Paragons worth it? What's the best way to maximize the benefit of Racial Paragons?

[Sinfire Titan]

To be honest, none of them are that good. The Orc Paragon is decent because it gives Rage without needing to be Chaotic, so it works for Monk builds who want Rage. Human is ok, but the loses don't really justify all three levels.

Elf, Drow, Half-Dragon, and the Planetouched Paragons all suck though. Not worth the levels. You can get better benefits from being Dragonborn instead of taking Half-Dragon Paragon, for example. Elf sucks because it's an Elf. It just doesn't justify the HP and Fort loss.

[Zovc]

I don't know how good they are from a powergaming stand point, but I have seen them in a select few builds (not that I really pay attention to that sort of thing).

I imagine Human Paragon could be good for making things class skills and giving you proficiency with one martial weapon if a PrC needed that. If you just like the classes, Half-Elf and Half-Orc both allow you to take other paragon classes in addition to the one you already have.

[LibraryOgre]

They're generally not worth it if you're charoping, but I would probably change them to provide spellcasting levels even if the character doesn't have the class, yet... most of these spellcasting levels are in favored classes, and there seems to be little reason to say they do not get them.

[tarbrush]

The human one is handy cause you can pick your skills, which is incredibly useful for meeting annoying prerequisite skills, and goes very well with Able Learner. It also has no lowest level, so you can squeeze it in to a lot of builds very easily.

So if you're trying to qualify for an oddball PrC as a spellcaster, and you're going to have to lose a casting level to get the skill, it's rather handy. It has no prereqs itself, decent skill points, 2/3 BAB, decent HPs and the stat bonus and feat are gravy. Also, it gives you one martial weapon proficiency which is otherwise hard to get without outsidery stuff. It's also exactly how many martial weapons you need to take Abjurant Champion, and you can blow the bonus feat on Combat Casting as found money.

So, you can take wizard1/HP3/Master specialist2 and be basically able to qualify for an awful lot of PrCs that Wizard 6 simply can't.

Wizard 6 is strictly better because, y'know, casting levels, but if you're in a position where you're going to have to lose a CL somewhere, Human Paragon is a decent place to lose it.

But the others, yeah, terrible.

[Eldariel]

To be honest, none of them are that good. The Orc Paragon is decent because it gives Rage without needing to be Chaotic, so it works for Monk builds who want Rage. Human is ok, but the loses don't really justify all three levels.

Elf, Drow, Half-Dragon, and the Planetouched Paragons all suck though. Not worth the levels. You can get better benefits from being Dragonborn instead of taking Half-Dragon Paragon, for example. Elf sucks because it's an Elf. It just doesn't justify the HP and Fort loss.

Gray (or Fire if going Str-focus) Elf Gish works "Ok" for Elf Paragon; you lose casting, but get some martial abilities, increase to casting stat and so on. Also, Half-Orc Paragon is the one that gives Rage; Orc Paragon is nice in games not allowing Sundark Goggles 'cause it gets rid of Light Sensitivity.

Dwarf Paragon is nice for some Con-stack warrior builds. Those are mostly all I'd use though, although Human Paragon getting a skill permanently in class has some niché uses too.

[Starscream]

I've actually used these as "free" levels to give to players.

I was fed up with the fact that choosing your species makes so little difference in the long run. A human wizard and an elven wizard might be a little different at level 1, but by level 20 they are nearly identical.

And some of the choices are just better than others. My parties would always consist of a bunch of humans and maybe a dwarf. I wanted to encourage the players to pick something more exotic.

So I started every with three "free" levels that could be used to improve their racial traits. If they were a core race they could spend them on levels of their racial paragon class. They could also be used to buy off the HD+LA of a monster race.

This made monster PCs more common, and also exaggerated the effects of being a certain species. Elves felt more elvish, Dwarfs were more dwarven etc.

[Elfin]

Ok, thanks for the help.
I kind of suspected they suck...but, y'know, just wanted to double check.
After all, I thought kobolds were terrible when I first came across them.

[SurlySeraph]

Ok, thanks for the help.
I kind of suspected they suck...but, y'know, just wanted to double check.
After all, I thought kobolds were terrible when I first came across them.

Kobolds are terrible, if you don't add natural attacks to them like RoD does and don't do anything exploitive like that Venerable Dragonwhateveritscalled Kobold trick. In a core-only game, kobolds are worthless.

[Sinfire Titan]

Kobolds are terrible, if you don't add natural attacks to them like RoD does and don't do anything exploitive like that Venerable Dragonwhateveritscalled Kobold trick. In a core-only game, kobolds are worthless.

Let's get something straight here: Anyone who isn't a full caster is more or less worthless in Core unless they rely on 90% of their WBL in magic items and step waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside of RAI.

[Myrmex]

Let's get something straight here: Anyone who isn't a full caster is more or less worthless in Core unless they rely on 90% of their WBL in magic items and step waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside of RAI.

Really? I'd say the monk is worthless. The fighter & barbarian can both contribute to combat, and the rogue, ranger, paladin and bard are good both in and outside of combat. I've never seen a monk that could contribute anything meaningful. They've always felt like resource drains. But rogues find traps and open things up (doors, purses, things with a pulse), fighters, paladins, rangers & barbarians save on spell slots for killing stuff as well as for doing other things, like talking to people or finding tracks.

[lsfreak]

Let's get something straight here: Anyone who isn't a full caster is more or less worthless in Core unless they rely on 90% of their WBL in magic items and step waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside of RAI.

Well, there's also the possibility that the entire group has zero concept of optimization or all belief in the Stormwind fallacy. Of course, if that's the case, they're likely to get roflstomped by mid-level monsters.

[Eldariel]

Mid-level Barbarian with Enlarge and Flight can make a decent tripper in Core. Horizon Tripper gets some additional self-sufficiency from...well, teleporting on his own power.

Barbarian is the only way to get sufficient Rage-uses to actually use it tho. Barbarian 14/Sorc 2/Dragon Disciple 4 even Enlarges on his own power. But yeah, casters are just so much better it's not even funny.

[Umael]

...

*sigh*

Once again, the notion of charop takes complete and utter control until the only thing that matters is being a wizard, a cleric, a druid, or to step outside of Core and get the other Tier 1 classes.

My (mostly likely minority) take on Racial Paragon classes:

If you are going for a concept and don't need to optimize, go for it. Personally, I prefer more interesting concepts that may make use of sub-optimal metagame choices than something that is far more powerful, but ultimately very boring.

(On the other hand, interesting does not mean stepping outside of the bounds of reasonable suspension of disbelief.)

To wit, I have a character concept who is a 1/2-orc paladin that will eventually become a Warpriest while making use of both the 1/2 orc paragon class & the human paragon class.

I don't give a **** that my character is "subpar", because I like the concept and it doesn't have a gaping hole of suck (despite what anyone else on the boards might think otherwise).

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Sorry if my post came across as a little snippy, but I get tired of charop dominating these kinds of discussions. The Racial Paragon Classes can be improved, yes, but they aren't CW Samurai.

[Eldariel]

...

*sigh*

Once again, the notion of charop takes complete and utter control until the only thing that matters is being a wizard, a cleric, a druid, or to step outside of Core and get the other Tier 1 classes.

My (mostly likely minority) take on Racial Paragon classes:

If you are going for a concept and don't need to optimize, go for it. Personally, I prefer more interesting concepts that may make use of sub-optimal metagame choices than something that is far more powerful, but ultimately very boring.

(On the other hand, interesting does not mean stepping outside of the bounds of reasonable suspension of disbelief.)

To wit, I have a character concept who is a 1/2-orc paladin that will eventually become a Warpriest while making use of both the 1/2 orc paragon class & the human paragon class.

I don't give a **** that my character is "subpar", because I like the concept and it doesn't have a gaping hole of suck (despite what anyone else on the boards might think otherwise).

The real question is, whether the Paragon-classes bring your character closer to the image you have of it. Generally I've found that the roles served by Paragon-classes are, with few exceptions, better served by taking actual character levels.

Half-Orc Paragon 3/Barbarian 3 is no more a Paragon of Half-Orcness than Half-Orc Barbarian 6. That really raises the question to the purpose of these classes; yes, they are built to make you "good at what this race is supposed to be good at", but honestly, isn't that what taking levels in the typical class of the race already does?

Is Elf Paragon 3/Wizard 3/Eldritch Knight 1 truly somehow more of an Elf Paragon than Elf Ranger 1/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 1? What is really the purpose and the role Paragon-classes play? The only ones I see as role-players are the ones that do something irreplaceable (such as give you Rage while Lawful, as with Half-Orc Paragon, or give you a permanent class skill like Human Paragon). Sadly, not all Paragon-classes truly offer such benefits.


Concept can be represented in a 100 ways - I've rarely found that a Paragon-class gives you the most accurate representation of almost any concept (really, the Half-Orc Paladin is basically the only thing I can think of right now), and that's because of the ridiculous "Lawful people can't be Barbarians"-notion.

[Captain Six]

I've always liked paragon classes myself but I have always been drawn toward humble beginnings characters that paragon really represents well. Three levels duration to see where character development takes me. Even after those three levels they can retroactively help thanks to the spellcaster progression (though RAW says they don't work retroactively most GMs I work with wouldn't care).

Whether they are weak or not depends on the baseline, I think they're a pretty good low level jack-of-all-trades class. A lot of them grant stunted spell progression in exchange for a bearable hit-dice, weapon proficiencies and BAB. It's a like a gish prestige class for low level games. Also the +2 to attribute capstone is very tempting to paranoid players like me looking for boosts that can't be taken away, sundered or anti-magic repressed.

Thinking about it I imagine it could come back to bite you in late-game but I don't see many high level games myself and rarely plan for it.