It's inevitable. No matter how many classes there are, will be, or how diverse the options are within those classes, there will be character concepts that cannot be fulfilled by one class alone. This is a good thing! The potential for expression vastly out-paces the ability of a finite possibility space to keep up, and that's exciting. Multiclassing helps expand the horizons of possibility even further than single classes can achieve, letting multiple classes step in and do the job that one class alone might be unable to accomplish.
Even within the concept of multiclassing there is diversity to be found, and different ways to approach the concept that is a character with more than one class. Realm of Runes includes to distinct styles of multiclassing, and each one serves a different conceptual niche. These two types are Discrete Multiclassing and Dedication Multiclassing. Any multiclassed character can make use of either one, but not both at the same time. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, both mechanically and from a character story perspective. We'll explore each one of them, how it works, and when it might be more appropriate or advantageous to pick one over the other.
DISCRETE MULTICLASSING
Discrete Multiclassing is a complete stop in one class in order to start another. This causes a character to become a fully-fledged member of each of its classes, with all the class feats and features available from the new class in addition to those gained from other classes. The trade-off is that, while your character level is the sum of your levels from all of classes, class features treat your level in that class as no more than the number of levels you have in that class specifically. Similarly, class feat level prerequisites only consider your level in that class. So, for example, if your 5th-level Ranger decides to pursue the art of Wizardry at level 6, it would be a 6th-level character, but a 5th-level Ranger and a 1st-level Wizard. Since 6th-level grants a class feat, this character could pick any Ranger feat of up to 5th-level, or any 1st-level Wizard feat.
This "stunting" of classes means that a discretely multiclassed character will not have access to many higher-level feats or abilities offered by a class, including the 20th-level capstone feats, but such a wide array of class features can help to make up for that. This style of multiclassing is helpful for the sort of character that makes a conscious choice to abandon an area of training in favor of another. Though you can always go back if you want. Any time you level up, you can freely choose to level any class you have, or start a new class from the beginning. It's up to your character, and the story it wants to tell.
While many higher-level abilities might never become unlocked for a character that uses Discrete Multiclassing to branch out into one or more other classes, the way that Realm of Runes is structured is designed to limit any "punishment" to just that. Important character abilities, like proficiency in your weapons, armor, saves, skills, and even spells all only care about your character level. This divorcing of skill and esoteric proficiency from class means that the Ranger/Wizard of our previous example might only have 1st-level spell slots in which to prepare spells, but the Spell Roll it uses to attack with those spells and the save DC targets must achieve in order to resist those spells remain as potent as those of any other spellcaster of 6th-level with the same proficiency in that magical tradition. Cantrips, too, have their progression divorced from class, and the level to which that Ranger/Wizard's Cantrips are heightened uses the total character level, making them manifest as 3rd-level spells at character level 6.
Similarly, most combat oriented feats and abilities scale with your proficiency in an area, such as a weapon group, and the minimum level requirement for proficiency only cares about your total character level. So our Ranger/Wizard would be freely able to reach master proficiency the following level with any skill or esoteric proficiency that it was already an expert in. This freedom to start and stop any number of classes without the system stepping in to make you actively weaker for it makes Discrete Multiclassing an excellent choice if the story calls for it, without ever imposing a feeling of guilt for letting the rest of your party down by becoming "weaker" for story reasons. You're not weaker in Realm of Runes for Discrete Multiclassing, just different.
DEDICATION MULTICLASSING
Not all characters choose to multiclass because they want to stop being what they are. Some characters instead like to dabble in the tricks of other classes without putting aside their primary class. This can be to better cover a hole in the party's capabilities, or just because the character thinks those other class abilities are interesting, or have good synergy with some of their own class abilities. Dedication Multiclassing exists for these dabblers and tinkerers, to mix things up laterally without being stunted vertically.
Every class in Realm of Runes has a set of Dedication Feats. These are special feats that contain abridged versions of that class's iconic abilities, like a Rogue's Sneak Attack or a Barbarian's Rage. You can never take Dedication Feats for your own class, but if you meet certain prerequisites you can pick up a Dedication Feat for another class any time you would choose a class feat. You still level up as a full member of your primary class each level, and never lose out on any class features like higher-level spell slots when you use Dedication Multiclassing. You "lose out" on any class feats for your class you might otherwise have picked, but since they were all optional anyway this isn't necessarily a bad thing. You probably weren't going to have all of those feats anyway, there are too many.
Since Dedication Feats are curated specifically for this purpose, they are balanced to have about the same impact on a character as any other class feat of that level. So if your Ranger decides at 6th-level that it wants to dabble in Wizardry, but doesn't want to stop being a Ranger, it has the freedom to expand into the Wizard's sandbox, without kicking it over for everyone else. Dedication Feats will never make you better at whatever it is makes a class special, that's not their purpose, but they will absolutely give you abilities that make your character clearly a hybrid of more than one class. Also, most Dedication Feats use the same automatic scaling tricks as used elsewhere in Realm of Runes. So even if you pick up a Dedication Feat with a level prerequisite lower than your character level, it likely will already have powered itself up to still be worth your feat slot.
As long as you meet the prerequisites for each class's Dedication Feats, there is no other limit to the number of different class dedications you can have. How fully you explore this additional capability is similarly up to you. You can pick up one Dedication Feat for convenience and never touch another one again, or spend nearly all of your class feats on Dedication feats. This freedom to dabble and experiment without stunting your progression in the class you picked to start with makes Dedication Multiclassing an excellent choice for a character that wants to try all of the things, without ever imposing a feeling of inadequacy by not fully exploring the potential of your primary class's feats. You're not losing out in Realm of Runes for Dedication Multiclassing, just different.
Realm of Runes fully embraces those players that like to play multiclassed characters, whatever the reason for doing so might be. As a system, it's designed from the ground up to ensure that these characters are just as comfortable and competent in an adventuring party as any single-classed character would be. Next time we'll continue our exploration of classes with the final class in Realm of Runes: the Wizard.
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