Half-elf seems weak if not multiclassing

I’ve always liked the lore for half-elves (shunned by two societies), but they have always been a fairly weak option mechanics-wise. I was under the impression they had gotten a boost in PF, and wanted to try them out for a new campaign. It looks like they are still pretty weak unless you are multiclassing, however. :/
Do you agree or am I missing something?

Alternate racial traits are strong on Half-Elves, giving Exotic Weapon Proficiency or bonus to will saves, etc. Most (if not all) of these can be found in the Advanced Race Guide.

Also, another important race factor is favored class bonuses. Not sure of any off the top of my head, but build boosting FCBs exist. Half-elves have access to their own, humans, and elves. A nice boost.

Half-elves are very nice, as they get all the character-building options of three races, plus the alternate racial traits are awesome, depending on your build. Yeah, they get feats to supplement their multiclassing, and that's cool, but their real power is being able to qualify for Racial Heritage while also casting Paragon Surge.

+2 to any ability score, access to humans and elves options, Half elves are frankly strong right now and multiclassing is fairly weak in pathfinder except for a few corner cases (Monk of many styles often used to get early style feats entry).

Compared to just sucking at everything in 3.5...yeah I don't mind.

I’ve always liked the lore for half-elves (shunned by two societies), but they have always been a fairly weak option mechanics-wise. I was under the impression they had gotten a boost in PF, and wanted to try them out for a new campaign. It looks like they are still pretty weak unless you are multiclassing, however. :/

Do you agree or am I missing something?

My single classed half-elf magus says you are missing much.

If you're getting an exotic weapon proficinecy - the only reason to go human instead is for the skillpoints. Handy - but half-elves get bunches of secondary benefits too.

Humans are still useful in the most different builds - but half-elves are pretty handy too.

Alternate racial traits are strong on Half-Elves, giving Exotic Weapon Proficiency or bonus to will saves, etc. Most (if not all) of these can be found in the Advanced Race Guide.

Also, another important race factor is favored class bonuses. Not sure of any off the top of my head, but build boosting FCBs exist. Half-elves have access to their own, humans, and elves. A nice boost.

Thanks, Xethik, I'll have to ask our DM about that. So far all I've had a chance to look at is the Core Rules, Inner Sea Guide, and the Player's Guide for our module.

Specifically, I'm trying to build a paladin concept I've had in my back pocket for awhile and though I like the half-elf lore I'm finding it hard to justify giving up the extra feat for just going human.

The dual minded alternate trait seems fantastic. +2 to will saves, on top of the +2 against enchantment effects that they get from elven immunity anyway. Throw on iron will and a good wisdom, and your half elf fighter can laugh at dominate spells.

Heck, early on, they might be better off than a caster cleric with those saves.

Half-elves are fantastic. They get three choices for alternate favored class bonus, and have some really unique options on their own AFCBs, like extra evolution points as a summoner. They get a free Skill Focus, allowing them to meet the pre-req for Eldritch Heritage without wasting a feat. Not your thing? Well, it can be traded for +2 on will saves, which is fantastic for any non-caster. They also get +2 against enchantment, which is where it counts. Really need darkvision? They can grab that, too. They're my race of choice when I'm stuck with core races. Admittedly, Paladins don't need better saves and can't do much with Skill Focus, so the usual advantage of getting a feat you'd want anyways doesn't apply.

Thanks for the responses, everybody.
What I'm getting from this generally is that half-elves are a lot stronger when you add the material from the Advanced Player's Guide.

I was thinking of having my paladin take TWF to take advantage of the crazy stats I rolled for him and probably go into shield bash stuff. So as cool as all of these options sound, I still feel like it's hard to justify giving up the stupid old human feat unless I want to go the exotic weapons route.

(To be clear: I don't want to min/max but I also don't want to take options that are obviously bad, if that makes sense. The rest of the party is pretty green and I want to help keep them alive, not outshine them.)

Thanks for the responses, everybody.

What I'm getting from this generally is that half-elves are a lot stronger when you add the material from the Advanced Player's Guide.

I was thinking of having my paladin take TWF to take advantage of the crazy stats I rolled for him and probably go into shield bash stuff. So as cool as all of these options sound, I still feel like it's hard to justify giving up the stupid old human feat unless I want to go the exotic weapons route.

(To be clear: I don't want to min/max but I also don't want to take options that are obviously bad, if that makes sense. The rest of the party is pretty green and I want to help keep them alive, not outshine them.)

Well, if you do go TWF and do want an exotic weapon, some nice double weapon like the two bladed sword is good.

Double weapons have the option to switch between 1handed/light and 2handed, which means you can just go for the big swing when you have to use standard action attacks or charges. The ability to bring decent damage when you have to move is one of the things that most TWF builds lack.

@Ebon Hand:

The half-elves do have a lot going for them. Some of the good stuff isn't entirely obvious, though. One of the best ones is you count as both human and elf when it comes to things like racial feats. So you could, for example, take both Fast Learner (a human feat) and Attuned to the Wild (an elven feat). And there's a good selection of Half-Elf-only feats you can add to that list too. That can give you some interesting options for versatility.

Keen Senses and Elven Immunities seem to be quite useful more frequently than you would think. They've cropped up quite a bit with the half-elf I play in my brother's campaign.

The Ancestral Arms option may be handy if it's a TWF martial/paladin type you want. That would let you pick up proficiency in a cool exotic weapon, such as the nasty sawtooth sabre. It does decent damage and it lightweight, so should work some nice for a TWF build.

Half Elf Sorcerers can not only recieve the human extra spells known favored class bonus, but they can take paragon surge as a spell without blowing extra resources and can take racial heritage as a feat to gain some of the racial specific feats that duplicate a passive magic item like a sylph's ability to self oxygenate in outer space.

Actually Auren, they can take any option that humans or elves can take, including Archetypes and Favored Class bonuses.

So, they DO have the Human's bonus spell per Favored class point

Edit: Oops misread, my bad

Well, if you do go TWF and do want an exotic weapon, some nice double weapon like the two bladed sword is good.

Double weapons have the option to switch between 1handed/light and 2handed, which means you can just go for the big swing when you have to use standard action attacks or charges. The ability to bring decent damage when you have to move is one of the things that most TWF builds lack.

Yeah, two-bladed sword does seem pretty good, and it's not something I've tried before. I will certainly consider it. Anway, now that I've derailed my own thread into "Advise my paladin"...

The half-elves do have a lot going for them. Some of the good stuff isn't entirely obvious, though. One of the best ones is you count as both human and elf when it comes to things like racial feats. So you could, for example, take both Fast Learner (a human feat) and Attuned to the Wild (an elven feat). And there's a good selection of Half-Elf-only feats you can add to that list too. That can give you some interesting options for versatility.

That's actually pretty cool. It probably won't help me much for this campaign, however since we're starting at level 1 and it sounds like sessions will be pretty infrequent.

Keen Senses and Elven Immunities seem to be quite useful more frequently than you would think. They've cropped up quite a bit with the half-elf I play in my brother's campaign.

Keen Senses is definitely good. As for Elven Immunities, I am jealous. I have played at least a dozen campaigns of 3.X and never seen it come up.

Half-elves really have some nice options with baseline racial traits, alternate racial traits, and favored class bonuses. It goes much farther than Multitalented for a multi-classed character.

Some are mentioned above, but one that can work quite well (if you're willing to give up the favored class bonus) is to take the Arcane Training alternate racial trait in either alchemist, bard, witch, or wizard to use spell trigger items of spells from that spell list without Use Magic Device (or multi-classing). Obviously, wizard has the broadest spell list (it's an attractive choice for a staff magus, or even just a magus planning on taking the Wand Wielder arcana; or any class that wants to use a wand of acid arrow, magic missile, shield, scorching ray, etc. but doesn't have them on their spell list); however alchemist has all of the healing and status removal "spells" (for fast reliable use of wands of cure light wounds, lesser restoration, etc.), bard has some nice enchantment and divination spells as well as some healing (say for a Thassilonian specialist of Gluttony or Greed, or a summoner that wants to expand a little into a debuffer/healer/investigator role), and witch has some otherwise hard to get spells in one list (a little bit of everything; good for a class that already has a focused spell list).

Drow magic is really strong racial alternative. Get SLAs. Now you qualify for both crafting feats and arcane strike.

Thinblood Resilience (from the Underdark) boost your fort saves against poison and disease, but also acts like the Use Poison(EX) special ability. Poisons are not all that great, but it's a nice littler rider to add to weapons.

Half Elf Sorcerers can not only recieve the human extra spells known favored class bonus, but they can take paragon surge as a spell without blowing extra resources and can take racial heritage as a feat to gain some of the racial specific feats that duplicate a passive magic item like a sylph's ability to self oxygenate in outer space.

Actually, since Sylphs are native outsiders and not humanoids, you cannot use Racial Heritage to get their abilities.

Still -- if you want to play a Summoner, you can get 10 extra evolution points over 20 levels by combining the Wild Caller racial archetype with the Half-Elf favored class bonus.

Half elves also have the best favored class bonus for investigators as well.

So it seems like half-elves were weak in the core rules and Paizo beefed them up by offering a lot of versatility like alternate race traits, racial feats, etc. in the supplements. I'll have to ask my DM which books he wants to allow.

Half-elves aren't weak in Core either if you compare them to only what's in Core. Everyone gets the same FCBs (1 skill point or HP). No other alternate racial traits. Very few race-only feats. +2 to any stat of choice. All in all, half-elf in Core is not bad. It's not as good as other strong options (1 extra feat is tremendous for any build), but it is still good.

Half-elves really have some nice options with baseline racial traits, alternate racial traits, and favored class bonuses. It goes much farther than Multitalented for a multi-classed character.

Some are mentioned above, but one that can work quite well (if you're willing to give up the favored class bonus) is to take the Arcane Training alternate racial trait in either alchemist, bard, witch, or wizard to use spell trigger items of spells from that spell list without Use Magic Device (or multi-classing). Obviously, wizard has the broadest spell list (it's an attractive choice for a staff magus, or even just a magus planning on taking the Wand Wielder arcana; or any class that wants to use a wand of acid arrow, magic missile, shield, scorching ray, etc. but doesn't have them on their spell list); however alchemist has all of the healing and status removal "spells" (for fast reliable use of wands of cure light wounds, lesser restoration, etc.), bard has some nice enchantment and divination spells as well as some healing (say for a Thassilonian specialist of Gluttony or Greed, or a summoner that wants to expand a little into a debuffer/healer/investigator role), and witch has some otherwise hard to get spells in one list (a little bit of everything; good for a class that already has a focused spell list).

The problem with that is that it eats up your favored class bonus, since it requires you to pick an arcane class (which we are avoiding with this)

Dragonchess Player wrote:

Half-elves really have some nice options with baseline racial traits, alternate racial traits, and favored class bonuses. It goes much farther than Multitalented for a multi-classed character.

Some are mentioned above, but one that can work quite well (if you're willing to give up the favored class bonus) is to take the Arcane Training alternate racial trait in either alchemist, bard, witch, or wizard to use spell trigger items of spells from that spell list without Use Magic Device (or multi-classing). Obviously, wizard has the broadest spell list (it's an attractive choice for a staff magus, or even just a magus planning on taking the Wand Wielder arcana; or any class that wants to use a wand of acid arrow, magic missile, shield, scorching ray, etc. but doesn't have them on their spell list); however alchemist has all of the healing and status removal "spells" (for fast reliable use of wands of cure light wounds, lesser restoration, etc.), bard has some nice enchantment and divination spells as well as some healing (say for a Thassilonian specialist of Gluttony or Greed, or a summoner that wants to expand a little into a debuffer/healer/investigator role), and witch has some otherwise hard to get spells in one list (a little bit of everything; good for a class that already has a focused spell list).

The problem with that is that it eats up your favored class bonus, since it requires you to pick an arcane class (which we are avoiding with this)

He mentioned that. It might be worth it for a staff magus. It is very good if you are planning on taking a lot of prestige class levels which don't give you FCB's anyway.