I think this would go a long way towards making more unique items viable and allow for fun and unusual builds.
It also fits flavor I think a lot better than limiting unique bonuses to specific classes. After all, equipment that grant access to something that usually only certain classes can use is typically what makes Uniques so special.
Nor do I think it would be particularly overpowered. Let’s actually look at all the effected items:
One of the most obvious beneficiaries would be certain boots:
Tearhaunch gives +2 to Vigor. Currently it’s not really used by anyone, but if it can give +2 to Vigor to any player, then it suddenly becomes more viable to non-Paladin players who might enjoy access to Vigor.
Gorefoot gives +2 to Leap. It could be attractive to non-Barbarian non-Sorceress players who want some mobility.
Marrowwalk can give +2 to Skeleton Mastery, not very useful on it’s own, but perhaps it might be useful to someone using a Faith Bow, as it would buff the Returned.
Shadow Dancers would give +2 to Shadow Disciplines, which isn’t useful for non-Assassins unless they have something else giving them access to a specific Shadow Discipline.
Moving on to other uniques:
Seraph’s Hymn would give up to +2 to Defensive Auras, which I suppose could be stacked with Tearhaunch to get +4 to Vigor. That’s not overpowered.
Iselstrike gives +1 to Fury and +1 to Maul. You’d need Werewolf or Werebear to make use of it, so I suppose it could be combined with Wolfshowl or Beast (for a dual wielding Barb) to get access to those skills. Hardly overpowered.
Snowclash gives +2 to Chilling Armor, +2 to Blizzard, and +3 to Glacial Spike. Without synergies Blizzard is pretty much a defensive spell useful for the slowing effect. Chilling armor is a defensive skill, and Glacial Spike is battlefield control spell because of the Freeze effect. Nothing here that is overpowered, but could be useful for a build that would benefit from those effects. Maybe a Poison Necro would find it useful?
Thundergod’s Vigor gives +3 to Lightning Fury and +3 to Lightning Strike. Lighting Strike really isn’t that great without synergies. Could be useful for a Throw Barb using javelins.
Ormus Robes would probably be the biggest beneficiary, as it can possibly grant +3 to Teleport. But only if it rolls that as the + Skill. We already have an armor that grants +3 to Teleport - Enigma. All this would really do is give an alternate body armor choice for non-Sorceress players that use Elemental Damage.
Templar’s Might gives up to +2 to Offensive Auras, so you’d need something else to give you a specific Offensive Aura to make use of it. Like Rusthandle giving +3 to Thorns. Thorns on a non-Paladin is not overpowered. Bramble would be a better choice.
Blastbark gives +2 to Exploding Arrow, so it could be useful for an Enchant Sorceress, or maybe a Holy Fire Paladin. (Note that you can’t use dual Dragon’s with it)
Endlesshail gives up to +5 to Strafe, so again maybe an Enchant Sorceress or a Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock Paladin could make use of it. (Note that you can’t use dual Dreams or Dragons with it).
Kuko Shakaku gives +3 to Bow and Crossbow Skills, and +3 to Immolation Arrow, so maybe it would work well with a Fire Sorceress.
Magewrath gives +3 to Guided Arrow, so perhaps an Enchant Sorceress might get some use out of it. (Note Widowmaker already gives up to +5 to Guided Arrow without class requirements, so this isn’t a new thing that will shake the meta)
Fleshrender gives +2 to Shapeshifter Skills, so again maybe could be combined with Wolfshowl.
Blackbog’s Sharp gives +4 to Poison Nova, +4 to Poison Explosion, and +5 to Poison Dagger… yeah still not going to be used much.
Heart Carver gives +4 to Grim Ward, +4 to Find Item, and +4 to Find Potion. So I guess some players might carry a Heart Carver on their weapon switch to gain access to Find Item? Not going to be a huge change.
Bloodtree Stump gives +2 to Masteries, and +3 to Mace Mastery. So you gain +5 to Mace Mastery, granting a small bonus to Attack Rating, Damage, and Critical Strike. Just barely makes it a possible competitor for Bonesnap. (Worse damage, but better resistances and slightly more Crushing Blow).
Earth Shifter gives +7 to Elemental Skill, so maybe useful if you have something else granting you a + Skill to something like Cyclone Armor.
Earthshaker gives +3 to Elemental Skills. Again not overpowered.
Undead Crown gives +3 to Skeleton Mastery, again only useful if you have someway of summoning Skeletons or Returned. (Like using a Faith bow)
Bloodrise gives +3 to Sacrifice, is that overpowered? I think not.
The Meat Scraper gives +3 to masteries. Not overpowered.
Astreon’s Iron Ward gives up to +4 to Paladin Combat Skills. So you’d need a + to a Paladin Combat Skill first to make use of it.
Hand of Blessed Light gives +2 to Fist of the Heavens, and +4 to Holy Bolt, so I guess a dual wielding Barb could combine this with Astreon’s Iron Ward to get +10 Holy Bolt. But that’s not going to powerful without the synergies.
Rusthandle gives +3 to Thorns, and up to +3 to Vengeance. Runewords (Bramble, Edge, Kingslayer) already grant access to these skills to non-Paladins and they are hardly used.
Stormeye gives +1 to Fist of the Heavens, +3 to Holy Shock, and up to +5 to Resist Lightning. Maybe some people will use it for the Resist Lightning Aura, but probably not.
The Redeemer Gives up to +4 to Redemption, and up to +4 to Holy Bolt. Non-Paladins already have access to Redemption through the Phoenix runeword, but I guess some caster types might use this instead.
Zakarum’s Hand gives +2 to Holy Shock, and +2 to Holy Freeze. Again not overpowered.
Spire of Honor gives +3 to Paladin Combat Skills. Not overpowered.
The Impaler gives +5 to Impale, and +3 to Power Strike. Power Strike is not powerful without synergies, while Impale might be useful to a Barbarian or Druid for dealing with a Boss.
Bane Ash gives +2 to Warmth, and +5 to Fire Bolt. Could be useful early game for non Sorceress to have access to those skills, but nothing powerful after mid game.
Chromatic Ire gives +1 each to Cold, Lightning, and Fire Mastery, so it might be useful to a Fire Druid.
Spire of Lazarus gives +1 to Chain Lightning, +2 to Lightning, and +3 to Static Field. Non-sorceress already have better access to Static Field, so this won’t really change anything.
The Iron Jang gives +2 to Nova, +2 to Blaze, and +3 to Frost Nova, none of which are going to be overpowered. I guess access to Blaze might be nice to some players for the Faster Run/Walk effect.
The Salamander gives +1 to Fire Wall, +2 to Fire Ball, and +3 to Warmth. Access to Warmth early game would be useful for a few non-sorceress players, but this isn’t going to change any meta.
Warpspear gives +3 to Energy Shield, +3 to Teleport, and +3 to Telekiness. Access to Teleport without needing to pay for recharging will be nice, but it’s not going to be better than Enigma. Gimped Energy Shield might be useful for melee characters, so I could see a lot of Barbarians having this on Weapon switch to get access to Teleport and Energy Shield.
Bloodletter gives up to +3 to Whirlwind, and up to +4 to Blade Mastery. Maybe this might be used on weapon switch in PvP.
Cloudcrack gives +2 to Offensive and Defensive Auras. Not overpowered.
Kinemil’s Awl gives +6 to Holy Fire, Not even close to being overpowered.
Plague Bearer gives +5 to Rabies, so it could be dual wielded and combined with Wolfhowl to give a Barb shapeshifter a decently high Rabies.
Arm of King Leoric gives +2 to Summoning Skills, +2 Poison and Bone Skills, +2 to Raise Skeletal Mage, +2 to Terror, +3 to Raise Skeleton, and +3 to Skeleton Mastery. So with wands we are getting into items that could provide a whole additional new style of play, but it’s not that powerful, it gives you a weak gimped summoner. I mean, I guess a Trap Assassin could use these weak summons to shield themselves while laying traps, although that means using corpses for this instead of Death Traps. A Fire Druid, or Sorceress might find these useful. Maybe a Thorns Paladin? I think we should try it in a PTR and see if this is actually all that powerful. I doubt it is. If it is overpowered then we exclude unique Wands from granting + to Skills without Class requirements.
Blackhand Key gives +1 to Curses, not useful unless you already have a + to a specific Curse.
Boneshade gives up to +2 to Bone Spirit, +3 to Bone Spear, +3 to Bone Wall, +5 to Bone Armor, and +5 to Teeth. Not particularly useful. Maybe the Bone Wall for crowd control for a Trap Assassin, or Fire Druid? But probably not worth giving up your weapon slot.
Carin Shard gives +2 to Summoning Skills, not useful.
Death’s Web gives up to +2 to Poison and Bone Skills, not useful.
Maelstrom gives up to +3 to Terror, +3 to Iron Maiden, +3 to Corpse Explosion, and +3 to Amplify Damage. Players already have access to some of these effects through charges and they are hardly used. I guess having Amp Damage on weapon swap will make this valuable. Maybe a Fist of the Heavens Paladin could use this to help with non-Demons and non-Undead. (Kill one monster in a mob with Lightning damage and then use corpse explosion). Test it out in PTR and see if it’s really that useful. My guess is that it’ll be only of marginal use, but if it isn’t as said we could exclude wands. Honestly Maelstrom needs to be redesigned anyway.
Ume’s Lament gives +2 to Decrepify and +3 to Terror. Decrepify might be useful I guess on a weapon switch, but probably not any more than a wand with Decrepify charges.
Totems, Orbs, Pelts, and Primal Helms don’t need to be considered since they are only equipable by their specific classes anyway.
Nothing in this is overpowered with the possible exception of wands, although I doubt that, and would like to see it tested in a PTR before excluding them. A few items are useful for niche builds, others as useful alternatives to best in class, some are useful only for early levels, only one has the possibility for best in slot (Ormus Robes) and even there it’s marginal at best compared to Enigma. This change wouldn’t break anything, and it would bring older items in line with the newer items which usually grant the skills without class requirements.
I bet this could be extended to Set Items as well.
Aldur’s Deception grants +1 to Elemental and +1 to Shapeshifting, so maybe it could be used with Wolfshowl and other items for a Shapeshifting Barbarian.
Griswold’s Heart gives +2 to Defensive Auras.
Griswold’s Redemption gives +2 to Paladin Combat Skills.
Griswold’s Valor gives +2 to Offensive Auras. Nothing overpowered here.
Immortal King’s Detail gives +2 to Masteries, but only if wearing the entire set, so you’d have to be a Barbarian to make use of it.
Immortal King’s Pillars would give +2 to Barbarian Combat Skills (if you have 3 pieces), which again isn’t useful unless you already have a + specific Combat Skill. So I guess you could buff using Bloodletter?
Immortal King’s Soul Cage gives +2 to Barbarian Combat Skills. So again you could boost Bloodletter.
Immortal King’s Will is a Barbarian only helm, so only Barbarian’s can use it.
M’avina’s Caster is an Amazon only bow, so only Amazon’s can use it.
M’avina’s Embrace has +2 to Passive and Magic Skills, so I guess you could use it with Insight to gain more Critical Strike.
Natalya’s Shadow gives +2 to Shadow Disciplines, which isn’t useful for non-Assassins unless they have something else giving them access to a specific Shadow Discipline.
Tal Rasha’s Lidless Eye is an Orb, and so cannot be used by non-Sorceresses, so it would unaffected by the change.
Trang-Oul’s Claws gives +2 to Curses. Hardly overpowered.
Trang-Oul’s Scales gives +2 to Summoning Skills. Only really useful in combination with Arm of Leoric. Needs testing in PTR to see if it’s overpowered. Simply depends on the decision to exclude wands or not.
Trang-Oul’s Wing can only be used by a Necromancer.
Okay so none of the Sets are really effected except for buffing Woflhowl via Aldur’s (which could use that).
Maybe we could even do it with Runewords, and bring the effects of older Runewords more in line with the newer ones (which don’t have class requirements on the + Skills):
Fury gives +5 to Frenzy, doesn’t matter since you have to be a Barbarian to dual wield weapons.
Holy Thunder gives +3 to Holy Shock. Not overpowered.
Leaf gives +3 to Inferno, +3 to Fire Bolt, and +3 to Warmth. I guess it might improve it’s usefulness for Fire Druids.
EDIT: An interesting idea I had later was that if you allowed the +skills on Leaf to apply to all classes, you could also allow it to be made in a wand. That might be useful to a Necromancer wearing Trang-Oul’s as they already have Fire Mastery, and… +18 to Fire Ball I think? You’d probably want a wand with +3 to Lower Resist, and maybe Fire Golem? Run a full Fire Necro.
Melody gives +3 to Bow and Crossbow skills, +3 to Slow Missiles, +3 to Dodge, and +3 to Critical Strike. Insight (and Peace) already gives access to Critical Strike to non-Amazons. I don’t think allowing non-Amazon’s access to Dodge and Slow Missile are going to break anything.
Memory gives +3 to Energy Shield, and +2 to Static Field. Not any more game changing than Warpspear. So really no reason for these +Skills to be Sorceress only.
Unbending Will gives +3 to Barbarian Combat Skills. Not sure why this new Runeword is Barbarian only, maybe because both Paladin’s and Barbarian’s have Combat skills, and current coding doesn’t differentiate. If so that ought to be changed.
White gives +3 to Poison and Bone Skills, +2 to Bone Spear, +4 to Skeleton Mastery, and +3 to Bone Armor. This isn’t going to be more powerful than Arm of Leoric to a non-Necromancer, so really it just depends on PTR testing to see if we should exclude wands from allowing Uniques and Runewords to add skills without class requirements.
That’s it for the older runewords that had class requirements for +skills.
I think this change would really benefit things, allow for new builds, revitalize some older uniques, and bring consistency to whether uniques grant skills or not. Why do some grant skills without class requirements but other’s don’t?
I guess that then opens up the question of whether this should be extended to the staff mods on white/magical/rare Staves, Scepters, Wands, Gloves, Shields, Helms, etc. My first instinct is no, but let’s take a glance at them anyway:
Staves would obviously be attractive to a lot of players for the + Teleport. But that doesn’t really change much for most end game players considering Enigma would be better in just about everyway. And you already have teleport charges on Staves, so it doesn’t really change playthrough either. It just makes things a bit easier.
Other sought after effects… + to Fire Mastery would be attractive to Fire Druids. Cold Mastery probably isn’t enough to interest a Wind Druid. Lightning and Fire Mastery don’t work with Traps so… + Warmth might be attractive to spell casters in general, but it’s not like Enlightenment (with it’s +1 to Warmth) is being used all that much.
Other than that, the + Frozen/Shiver/Chilling Armor, and Energy Shield might be useful, but not overly much. So Staves really wouldn’t change much if their staff mods would apply to non-Sorceress players.
Scepters could be attractive for granting Auras or Zeal, but most of those are already granted by runewords, so it’d be nothing new. Holy Shield is probably the big new attraction here. Something like Call to Arms in a Scepter with + Holy Shield would probably become a common weapon switch. So I’d lean against allowing this it, but I can’t say it’d be horribly overpowered.
Wands wouldn’t be much different than the Uniques already discussed. So I guess that would also depend on PTR testing.
Rare Gloves can grant +2 to Spear and Javelin Skills, Bow and Crossbow Skills, Passive and Magic Skills, or +2 to Martial Arts. So Actually I guess that would be useful to a Throw Barb using Thundergod’s or a Paladin or Enchant Sorceress using one of the +Skill Bows. There aren’t any + specific Martial Arts Skill items available, so I guess that doesn’t matter. And even in the future, none of those skills are all that great without synergies etc. Except for Dragon Flight, and maybe Dragon Talon for procs?
So yeah… I guess that would be nice if rare and magic (which can go up to +3) and Crafted gloves would give their +skills without class requirements.
Helms can grant + to Shadow Disciplines, or + to Barbarian Combat Skills. So I guess that would be fine too.
Shields can grant + to Paladin Combat Skills, Offensive Auras, and Defensive Auras. So that would also be fine.
Axes, Daggers, Hammers, Polearms, Spears, Maces, and Clubs can grant + to Barbarian Combat Skills, Masteries, or Warcries. Club’s can also grant +2 to Elemental, Shapeshifting, and Druid Summoning, while Daggers can grant + to Poison and Bone Skills, Spears can grant + to Spear and Javelin Skills, and Maces/Swords can grant + Paladin Combat and Offensive Auras. That’s all probably fine.
So I guess it’s really about allowing Staves and Scepters. And nothing would really change except for everyone running around with a Call to Arms +Holy Shield scepter on weapon switch. I guess that’d be okay. No worse than allowing everyone access to Battle Orders with Call to Arms is anyway.
So I guess if just removing the + Skill Class requirement is easier than leaving it in for some things but not others it would okay to do.
And I have no idea where did you get 1:2000. It is 1:1500 with 0 MF (I recommend the german drop calc, it is the most precise