I’d have to believe there are workarounds, but my first question would be what your art direction/scene targets are, and what your budget for writing custom systems are. Are your requirements for a fully dynamic scene/lighting? Are you able to cache lighting? Can you make non-hero refractive effects cheaper?
The long tail problem of recursive reflection/refraction can be a serious performance drain, but it’s probably possible to make optimizations based on your content. All depends on what you’re willing to sacrifice.