Now that we've explored how proficiency works in general, let's delve into the ways that proficiency works for you. There are two parallel proficiency categories in Realm of Runes, skills and esoteric proficiency. Skills will be explored in another entry, and esoteric proficiency includes Armor Categories, Perception, Magical Traditions, Saving Throws, Shields, and Weapon Groups. Your proficiency tier with each of these defines your customized suite of broad capabilities as a character.
Each type of esoteric proficiency provides additional benefits for improved levels of proficiency with that area. The difference between the attack roll for a master with a weapon and an expert with a weapon is small, so it's these additional benefits that provide the largest reward for focusing on one area over another.
INITIAL PROFICIENCY & ESOTERIC PROFICIENCY BOOSTS
As you go through the steps of character creation, you'll determine a suite of initial proficiencies. Depending on your choices of ancestry, background and class, you start with a proficiency tier for each of these categories. From then on, how you improve your esoteric proficiencies is entirely up to you. At 3rd-level, and every odd level from then on, you get an esoteric proficiency boost that can be freely applied to any of these categories at your discretion. Wizards aren't likely to start with a wide array of armor categories, but there's nothing to stop them from building their competence with armor. That wizard might find better synergy elsewhere, but the option is always available for those that want to make use of it.
ARMOR CATEGORIES
Your Armor Class (AC for short) is the difficulty threshold to hit you with an attack. One of the most critical components of calculating your AC is your proficiency with the armor you wear. Armor falls into one of four separate categories: unarmored, light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor. Unarmored is the proficiency you use when not wearing any armor at all, and typically applies when using magic for defense, such as the mage armor spell. Light armors provide the least actual protection, but allow for good flexibility, don't interfere with movement, and are inexpensive. Medium armor provides more protection than light armor, but impedes movement and flexibility a little while also costing more. Heavy armor provides the most protection, but is the hardest to maneuver in and can be quite pricey. Perhaps more important than the actual items available to each category are the additional benefits that better proficiency gives you, rewarding you for your focus in the categories you choose.
All characters cannot be less than trained in unarmored defense, but being unarmored doesn't usually protect you much. If you become an expert in unarmored defense, though, things start to look better for you. Once you have expert proficiency, you double the tier modifier for your unarmored proficiency. So, as an expert, your AC is based on your level +2 instead of +1, but this improves farther for master (level +4 instead of +2) and legendary (level +6 instead of +3). You're so adept at protecting yourself that your proficiency alone becomes as protective to you as the best armors. When you reach Master proficiency, you can use your AC while unarmored as any Strength- or Agility-based DC. Opponents trying to grapple or trip you? They've got to target your AC instead. They key word there is can, though! If your normal DC is better, this ability doesn't make you worse. And if you go all the way to legendary proficiency with unarmored, you gain additional bonuses to AC if your form is altered through morph or polymorph effects. Shape-shifting spells usually absorb your armor anyway, so if that's a tactic you like to use, specializing in unarmored proficiency may be right for you!
Most characters that aren't primarily spellcasters are at least trained in light armor. Like unarmored above, becoming an expert in light armor permanently doubles your tier modifier when calculating your AC in light armor. If you become a master of light armor, you can freely ignore the Agility Cap and Check Penalty for light armors, allowing you to wear the best light armor available without it getting in your way. If you become legendary in light armor, your mobility becomes so good that it becomes hard for your foes to react. Hostile reactions against you in light armor have a 25% chance of failure!
Not many characters begin trained in medium armor unless they have a combat focused class. Like other categories, becoming an expert in medium armor permanently doubles your tier modifier when calculating your AC in it. If you become a master of medium armor, you can turn narrow hits into narrow misses instead. If an enemy beats your AC with an attack by 1 or less, you can use a reaction to treat the result as a failure instead! If you become legendary in light armor you are no longer slower when wearing it, and you also gain a bonus reaction for using the master ability, so you can turn more narrow hits into narrow misses!
Only the most combat-focused classes begin trained in heavy armor. Like other categories, becoming an expert in heavy armor permanently doubles your tier modifier when calculating your AC in it. If you become a master, you always resist physical damage while wearing heavy armor. You increase any slashing, bludgeoning and piercing resistance you have by 5, and you aren't as slow when wearing it. If you become legendary in heavy armor, you aren't slow at all when wearing it and increase your physical resistance further, and also resist acid, fire and cold too!
PERCEPTION
Perception is how a character perceives the world around it, and has a strong influence on situational awareness. All characters are at least trained in Perception, while many are experts right from the start. Perception is strongly influenced by your character's precise senses and imprecise senses. All ancestries in Realm of Runes have some type of vision as a precise sense and can use hearing, touch and smell as imprecise senses. Some characters can use extraordinary abilities or magic to use other senses as precise, too. A precise sense can be used to pinpoint objects and creatures, but imprecise senses are more difficult to get detailed information from. They're helpful, but can't always be relied on in a combat situation.
In addition to types of senses, line-of-sight plays an important role for Perception. While the term implies vision, it applies to all senses for clarity. It sounds weird at first to mention line-of-sight for smell, but the concept makes enough sense from an abstract perspective to be useful mechanically.
All creatures and objects in Realm of Runes fall into one of three relationships with an observer. They are either Seen, Sensed or Unseen. Which category each belongs to depends on the observer's senses and light-of-sight for those senses. As relational categories, a creature can be seen to some creatures, while only sensed to others, and unseen to more. A creature or object within line-of-sight for a precise sense is seen. One not within line-of-sight to a precise sense, but within line-of-sight to an imprecise sense is unseen. One not within line of sight to any senses is unseen. Creatures or objects actively trying to hide can treat their line of sight as blocked if their Stealth is better than the observer's Perception. It's hard to target creatures you only sense, and impossible to target those unseen.
Becoming an expert in Perception permanently doubles your tier modifier when calculating your Perception. If you become a master, you can use your Perception in place of any checks or saving throws against illusions, traps and hazards. If you're legendary, you can treat your imprecise senses as precise senses and automatically notice when those around you are possessed or their behavior is controlled.
MAGICAL TRADITIONS
Realm of Runes divides magic into four categories, called traditions. These traditions include Arcane Magic, Divine Magic, Occult Magic and Primal Magic. Each tradition is used differently by practitioners, and all spells belong to one or more of these traditions. You don't have to be a caster yourself to improve your proficiency with a tradition. Magic items that cast spells on your behalf will often use your proficiency to determine the results, and anyone can attempt to cast spells as rituals, even if they do not otherwise have access to magic.
Some spells explicitly have different uses based on the caster's proficiency with the spell when cast. Others are affected more indirectly through the caster's Spell DC and Spell Roll. A Spell Roll is a check that uses the caster's proficiency with the spell's tradition and it's casting modifier, the key ability modifier it uses for casting its spells, determined by the source of those spells. Spell DC is similar, except that 10 is added to the caster's proficiency. When using a spell offensively, a Spell Roll is frequently rolled against a target's AC. For spells that affect an area or targets directly, the result of a saving throw is usually compared to the Spell DC to determine the results.
Becoming an expert with a magical tradition permanently doubles your tier modifier when calculating your Spell DC for spells of that tradition, but not your Spell Roll. If you become a master, performing rituals and crafting magic items of that tradition becomes easier for you. If you are legendary, your spells of that tradition still affect targets that have become bolstered to them. Bolstered represents a temporary, 24-hour immunity from exposure, so being able to overcome that can be huge.
SAVING THROWS
Characters in Realm of Runes have three types of saving throws: Fortitude, Reflex and Will. Fortitude represents your ability to resist physical ailments like poison and disease, and your Fortitude modifier also influences how many Hit Points you recover naturally. Reflex represents your ability to resist area effects and maintain your mobility. Will represents your ability to resist effects that try to influence or control your mental state. Each of these saves are important, and every class is an expert with one or more of them to start.
As critical as they are, saves don't start to provide extra incentive for focusing on them until master tier. If you are a master with a save, you permanently can't get worse than failure when attempting a save of that type. Many effects, such as the fireball spell, do increased damage if your save is bad enough to critically fail, but a master of a save doesn't have to worry about that anymore. If you are legendary with a save, you always treat your result as one step better than rolled. Many spells and effects have dramatically reduced or no effect if the target critically succeeds at its save, and a character with legendary proficiency is more likely to get these extremely favorable results.
SHIELDS
Shields occupy an interesting place in Realm of Runes. They are both defensive like armor, and offensive like weapons. Most classes are untrained with shields unless they are particularly combat focused, but improving your proficiency with a shield improves both the offensive and defensive aspects simultaneously. Shields are either light or heavy. Light shields cost and weigh less, but are also less protective.
Defensively, a shield only helps you if you spend time to raise it. A raised shield provides a temporary bonus to AC, and also can be used to reduce incoming damage at the risk of breaking the shield. If you're an expert, you can use your proficiency with a shield you wield when calculating your AC, allowing you to stay protected even while in unfamiliar armor. If you're a master with shields, the bonuses to AC stack if you raise more than one shield at once. If you're legendary, you can raise a shield even if you aren't wielding it already, going straight from stowed to ready to protect with one action.
Offensively, shields function as a weapon group that's good for some bludgeoning damage in a pinch. If you add a boss or spikes to the shield, its damage improves dramatically and it becomes a bit more useful as a weapon. If you're an expert with shields you can push targets with the shield when you critically hit a foe. If you're a master, any shield you wield functions as a thrown weapon. If you're legendary, a shield you throw always bounces back to you after you throw it.
WEAPON GROUPS
Weapons in Realm of Runes are divided into categories of similar weapons, called weapon groups. There are 16 different groups to choose from: axes, bombs, bows, brawling, clubs, darts, firearms, flails, hammers, knives, picks, shields, siege weapons, slings, spears, and swords. During character creation, everyone gains one or more esoteric proficiency boosts for weapon categories, which they can assign at will. Unlike other initial proficiency from class, the weapons you favor are entirely up to you. The more combat focused a class is, the more boosts they get for weapon groups. Characters can freely use these boosts to be trained with a broad range of groups, or stack them to be an expert with a smaller range of groups. It's your choice whether to be versatile or specialized.
Some weapons in each group are simple or exotic, indicated by having the corresponding weapon trait. Simple weapons are easy to use, and you're always treated as trained when using them unless your proficiency would be better. So even if you didn't invest any of your esoteric proficiency boosts into knives, you can still pick up a dagger and use it competently because it's simple. On the other hand are exotic weapons. These weapons are hard to learn, either because they're not common, really strange, or both. The exotic trait tells you that you are flat-out untrained with this weapon, regardless of your proficiency with its group - but there are several ways that a character can "remove" the exotic trait from weapons, in which case they permanently function as any other weapon of that group for you. Because they're freely available, simple weapons tend to be not quite as good as other weapons of a group that aren't simple, and exotic weapons tend to be better than other weapons of their group as a reward for expending the effort and character resources to be good with them.
If you're an expert with a weapon group, you gain access to that group's critical specialization, which provides an extra effect when you score a critical hit with that weapon. These can do a range of different things, such as extra damage for hammers and picks, puncturing armor for knives, or other useful things. If you're a master with a group, weapons of that group always deal extra damage for you. If you're legendary, a weapon group unlocks its best ability for you, which varies from group to group like the critical specializations.
Because each esoteric proficiency is more than just an incremental bonus to your checks in that category, reaching a new tier of proficiency is an improvement that you feel immediately. By making these differences special in ways besides the numerical bonus, Realm of Runes allows them to still feel important without needing to adjust the overall system math to accommodate for huge swings in dice roll modifiers. By making their improvement a matter of choice, Realm of Runes makes you free to explore the character concept you want, rather than limiting you to the typical. Next time we're going to start looking at classes in Realm of Runes, starting with the Alchemist!
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