cross-race paragons?

[the_orc_within]

Is there anything glaringly wrong mechanically with allowing humans (in a humans-only campaign) to take racial paragon classes? The idea is to express a latent lineage.

The rules I'm thinking about are:

Spoiler:

* a character must spend a "Lineage" feat in order to gain access to a racial paragon class. (A "lineage" feat would typically grant a +1 or +2 bonus on 3 or so race-appropriate skills or other attributes.) Humans taking levels in Human Paragon are exempt from this feat requirement.

* a character cannot take levels in a Racial Paragon class if he already has levels in another Paragon class, or if he already has a Bloodline.

* the Half-race paragon classes are not available (mainly to avoid Bonus Feat conflicts and Divided Ancestry feature).

I've never used racial paragon classes before, so I'm not familiar with any balance issues they might present. Does the above sound reasonable? Am I missing something obviously broken?

[Ahnehnois]

I don't see it as being a problem. There may be a few things you have to interpret if a class improves something the character doesn't have. Example: an elf paragon's racial bonus on Search and Spot checks *increases* to +4. Just add +2 to whatever bonus the character might have had from the lineage feat you're using.

Also, the rules note that for ECL races the paragon class is a bit more powerful, but even these I don't think would trash the game, since paragons don't get full caster progression and typically lose out on something important while they're gaining their racial powers.

[the_orc_within]

Good call. Fortunately, it looks like most of the class features on those lists are fairly easy to extrapolate what the level bonus (rather than the total bonus) is.