Today, the folks over at Runes of Magic have given us a preview of their unique "dual class system", in which two classes can be specialized in past the tenth level.

Berlin, 2008/07/29: Having just being announced a few weeks ago, Runes of Magic has already caused some buzz with some very interesting RPG features. One of these will be the highly interesting dual class system of the upcoming fantasy online role-playing game.

Basically, players can choose from six main classes when starting into a new online career. According to individual preferences, they can select to play a warrior, ranger, cleric, knight, mage or a rogue (details for the classes can be found on the official website: http://www.runesofmagic.com/en/content,3,classes.html ). New classes will follow with future updates. All classes in Runes of Magic dispose of an individual skill set that allow impressive combo attacks in cooperation with other players. When a character reaches level 10, the player can select a secondary class, which augments the possible class combinations up to 30 individual combination types. Hence the dual class system of Runes of Magic functions like two characters in one and offers a lot of interesting tactical choices about how to approach the multiple challenges waiting in the game world Taborea.

Mage Progression

Knight Progression

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Generally, all classes in Runes of Magic can serve as a primary or secondary class. To switch between them, players have to visit a special class trainer e.g. in the town of Varanas located in the starting region. At any time players have full access to the complete level- based skill set of their active primary class. Simultaneously only the "non-specific" skills of their secondary class are available. But the character attributes of the secondary class add up to those of their primary class with 10 percent of their actual value. Contrary, all experience, attribute and talent points gathered from the online adventures accumulate exclusively to the active primary class. Therefore, only the primary skills of the main class can be upgraded by distribution of talent points. In any case, the level of the secondary class can not surmount the level of the primary profession. To level up their secondary class, players have to register it as their primary class with any class trainer. To start a new apprenticeship, they can use a scroll they get from their first visit at the beginning of the game to teleport to the region where they can level up their second class.

Using the dual class system of Runes of Magic wisely, players can build up their characters as multi-functional all-rounders. With a scout as secondary class, characters can use bows for example. With rogues as secondary they can use projectile weapons, warriors will give you axes. Combinations like melee fighters enhanced with several range combat skills as well as clerics that fight with axes become possible. The range of possibilities gives solo and group players many interesting tactical choices for PvE. RPG players will love the broad spectrum for character interpretation.

The skills of the six main classes make use of different energy types. Warriors use rage, scouts use focus, rogues need energy and mages, clerics and knights are fighting with mana. Players can apply those energy types independently from each other. Therefore, they can use the dual class system of Runes of Magic to build up dangerous specialists perfectly suited for group play also. For example, smart PC adventurers could create a mightybombardier with the combination of scout and mage. If for example the character runs out of focus, he simply switches to mana and can immediately launch the skills of his secondary mage class. In contrast to that, a combined knight-warrior class will be the ultimate melee fighter. But players need to be careful with some combinations: mages and clerics use the same mana pool which can quickly dry out your resources.

In the launch version, the primary and secondary classes will have an initial maximum level of 50. But in the course of the game new special classes, different class ranks and special skill decks are to be explored. Advanced players are heading for "master", "legendary" and "epic" classes that can be acquired after substantial progress in Runes of Magic . And that's not all concerning character development. Every character has its own set of skills that distinguishes between general skills like crafting or attack, and class-based primary and secondary skills. Frogster will introduce this system in detail soon. Registering for the beta has started on www.runesofmagic.com .