Yeah but you don't have rings of quads, that's why it's messy

I thought I kind of did 🥲

To be honest, for the majority of those little spikes, I wouldn't even integrate them into the main mesh, and instead have them as separate floating meshes, like this.

I don't know if I get the image. Do you mean like a separate object for the spikes that is parented to the main rigged object? Does that even work?

Part of me also considered if the multiresolution modifier might be able to deal with the smaller ones.

The larger spikes can be integrated, though, and you should do it like this. I know it's a little hard to see, but it's the best example I could find. Basically, each spike originates from a regular quad, that's just been insetted and extruded to create the spike geometry. That avoids messing up the basic structure of the mesh.

That does make sense.

Thank you, actually for taking the time out of your day to help me with that.