This is not a unique idea, of course, but I think it would be interesting to add runes to the game. Runes could be used to add a temporary or permanent buff to an item (replacing any previous rune effect, if any). Runes are consumable and stay in your inventory until applied to an item. Runes should be rare, and not terribly powerful, but can allow you to better customize your equipment. One rune might add a bleed effect or poison to a weapon with a limited number of uses. Another rune might give an item a permanent bonus to piercing resist or health or mana regen rate. Runes can be either be limited to a specific type of armor (eg. shield, helm, etc.) or not. You may even have runes that have both pluses and minuses, or a rune that converts one kind of damage to another. Runes should scale to the level of the dungeon they are found on, just like items Another possibility would be to add a runesmith skill to the game. At level 1, you learn to make weak and short-term temporary runes, and each successive level not only do you learn to craft better runes, but the weaker runes gain longer duration/uses and/or a greater effect. Another idea for an item to find would be a skill book (have a slight chance for them to spawn in a bookcase instead of a recipe). The skill book will give you one level in a random skill. If you already have the skill at max level, you gain nothing. If you don't have the skill at all, you get it at level 1.
I think this as a crafting skill would be actually a great idea! I support this. Though Gaslamp has a lot of work to do before adding things like this.
