'''Runes''' in [[Diablo 3]] are small items that are socketed into [[skill]]s, not [[item]]s. The runes grant special bonuses to the skill. There are many types of runes, all found in various quality levels, and they work across skills -- ; each rune will (in theory) work in every skill, adding something similar to the skills.

[[Image:runeskill.jpg|thumb|Rune Socket]]Skill Runes in Diablo III improve a character's active skills in various creative ways. Runes don't just add damage; they modify the skill in some way, making it more powerful and fun to use, as well as allowing for character customization. Runes can be used very strategically; different runes in the same spell will do things. For example, : the Wizard skill , Blizzard , would gain different benefits from different runes. A few hypothetical Blizzard bonuses: more falling projectiles, longer duration, more damage per projectile, longer chill time, better to/hit, better chance of critical hit, and so forth. Also, each of those types of bonuses would be increased in power by the quality of the rune used, allowing for a huge variety of potential bonuses and play styles.

As of the Blizzcon BlizzCon demo (October 2008), only some Active Skills had sockets for runes. None ; none of the Passive skills did. Furthermore, no skill had more than one socket. It's is not known if any of this will remain into that way in the final game, or if all Active skills will have sockets. No skill had more than one socket, and that too is a feature that may change.

Runes can be removed instantly from sockets, at any time and without damaging or destroying the runeany penalty. Theoretically , players could juggle their runes around constantly; , sticking in a multi-strike rune to deal with big mobs, changing to a power rune to up the single target damage before a boss battle, and so forth. It's likely that Blizzard will take steps to limit that sort of this "rune juggling exploit; ", perhaps forcing players to return to town before they can change the rune socketed in a spell, putting a cool down time on resocketing the same skill, limiting the number of times a particular rune can be socketed, or even causing runes to lose quality when unsocketed, etc.

The D3 Team gave several examples of rune functions during a panel at Blizzcon (October 2008) when Skill Runes were first revealed as a game feature. ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouYP1zGfd0s Watch the demonstration] on You TubeYouTube.)

More runes will almost certainly be added during continuing development, as the team thinks of useful types to include in the game. The team won't be adding a lot of odd types of runes, though. ; D3 Lead Designer Jay Wilson has stressed that runes must add a useful function to multiple types of skills. The D3 Team wants all the runes to be useful to all characters, so they won't add runes that just boost one type of skill, or one character's skills. They have to think up rune bonus properties that work across the board, so there are probably not going to be 50 types of runes. (Utility doesn't equal equality, since not every skill can receive exactly the same level of improvement from every rune.)

It's been stated that runes will occur at have various levels of quality, in a fashion somewhat akin to the different quality levels of {{iw|Gem gems}} in Diablo II. At Blizzcon (October BlizzCon 2008) , [[Jay Wilson]] said there were 5 or 6 quality levels of runes, but that the number could go up or down during development. Higher qualities of runes will (of course) be dropped by higher level monsters, and the higher qualities will be much rarer. The function of each type of rune will not change at higher quality; instead the bonuses will be increased.

At the [[BlizzCon 2008]] demo , runes were stored in an inventory grid on the skill tree menu; not in the normal inventory. There were 10 rune slots below the skill trees. It's not known if they will still be stored there in the final game, if there will be ways to increase the number of slots, or if they can be stored in the inventory instead, etc.

What do you really know about runes? The ones from our world come 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 practiced 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 {{iw|Runeword RuneWords}} would be created to remake a mundane item into a Runic Item, with powers competing with magical artefacts.