Skill Runes

Runes are magical writing from unknown source, that will help heroes in their battle against Diablo and minions of Hell.

Diablo 3 Skill Runes

Runes in Diablo III are going to work differently than runes in Diablo II. They will no longer be socketed into items, like Diablo 2 runes, and there will not be any combination of runes to make RuneWords. A lot about Skill Runes was told during Blizzcon 2008 Class Design Panel. The following are infos gathered from the Panels, Developer Interviews and Q&A sessions.

Skills Customization

Skill Runes are being designed as a way to customize and improve your character's skills and are one of the main aspects of Diablo 3's skill system. By socketting in a Skill Rune you will actually change the look and way the skill works. It seems Skill Runes can be inserted into Active Skills only. As shown into Blizzcon Diablo 3 play sessions, every Active Skill presents a socket to insert runes into, while passive skills and masteries had none. Skill Runes can be swapped in and out freely, thus allowing and encouraging experimentation.

Rune Types and Quality

In a way similar to Diablo 2 gems, Skill Runes will come in a variety of kind and quality.

The type of rune you socket in determines the way the skill will be altered. As of today, known runes are:

• Energy Rune
• Lethality Rune
• Multistrike Rune
• Power Rune
• Striking Rune

The number is probably going to grow, since developers stated they will consider adding new runes whenever they come up with an idea to custumize skills in a cool new way.

Right now, only the Minor quality runes where shown. By the way, it was clearly stated that runes will come in four or five tiers of quality, with higher quality runes progressively more powerful. No further info on rune quality is available at the moment, still a progression like Minor, Normal, Major, Perfect runes, or similar pattern, is likely to show up in the final game.

Skills with Skill Runes exemples

During the panel it was shown how Skill Runes will affect the way Skills work, depending on the runes that are socketed into.

• Wizard's Mirror Image
  • Basic Mirror Image: creates an illusionary duplicate of yourself.
  • Multistrike Rune: number of images increased by one (higher qulity multistrike runes will surely increase the number even more).
  • Power Rune: your duplicates get more hitpoints and last longer.

• Wizard's Teleport Skill
  • Basic Teleport: you simply teleport into the desired spot the blink of an eye.
  • Striking Rune: allows you to do damage to whatever you teleport near to.
  • Multistrike Rune: you split into images of yourself, with the illusions distracting monsters.

• Witch Doctor's Skull of Flame
  • Basik Skull of Flame: you throw an exploding skull at your enemy, causing a fire explosion.
  • Multistrike Rune: the skull you throw will bounce on the ground, exploding and hitting enemies several times.
  • Power Rune: the skull will leave burning areas on the ground, with monsters walking through those taking additional damage.

• Wizard's Electrocute
  • Basic Electrocute: you pierce an enamy with an arc of electrical energy, wich chains up to one additional target.
  • Multistrike Rune: the effects chains up to several more monsters.
  • Lethality Rune: Whenever you kill a monster with the electrocute skill, it'll blow up in a nova-like explosion, hurting nearbye anemies.

During Diablo III play sessions at Blizzcon 2008 the use of Skill runes was enabled for Wizard characters only. If you where one of the lucky ones to try the early version of the game, and had the chance to play around with skill runes, feel free to contribute by reporting your experience.

Diablo 2 Runes

This is just part of the material available on this topic. The Diablo2Wiki Skill Runes article is available in the Diablo 2 wiki, which has a specific Diablo I and Diablo II focus. A lot of information unique to the first two Diablo games is available there. You can find it here:

• Diablo2.DiabloWiki.net/Runes Skill Runes.

Rune History

What do you really know about runes? The ones from our world comes from the ancient Vikings, and their "futhark" (equivalence of our 'Alpha Bet(a)'). They allegedly hold magic powers, and the magicks of the 'runa' are still practised today. These practices, called "Seden", are of course done mostly as a pastime, but some forms of the old runes were used in proper form as late as early 20th century in the 'Dalarna' area of Sweden...

In Sanctuary however, runes are definitely magically inscribed symbols. Though their use has changed slightly in the last 20 years, they used to grant (sufficiently prepared) items magical properties. For sages of these runes, magical RuneWords would be created to remake a mundane item into a Runic Item, with powers competing with magical artefacts.

Besides the fact that these supposedly ancient runes hold great and mystic powers, we know little about them. Who created them or how they are created is unknown. They seem to attract demons of different kinds, as they are often found on their corpses. If the runes are of demonic origin is not known either. They could have been the simple writing language of the first inhabitants of Sanctuary, who themselves were more powerful than Demons or Angels. Whatever the origin, they are of great use to heroes wishing to dethrone Diablo or Baal.