Lets say I just start a fresh third person project, now all I have to do is click on my default UE4 character and then change the skin to one of the paragon characters then change the Animation Blueprint to that characters blueprint and he runs and jumps just fine, is this an ok way to add in the characters? or should I be doing something else?
you should be replacing the character in the game mode settings to utilize the preset for the epic mesh.
Replacing the way you are doing doesn’t replace the skeletal mesh - ei: it only works because they are compatible, but all paragon characters have custom skeletons for custom functions/animations that you can only code and use if you utilize their skeleton and not the default one.