Changes

In ''Diablo II'', every item has a different range, down to the pixel. Polearms and spears reach much farther than swords, and on down through mauls and clubs and short swords until you reach wands and daggers, which have the least reach of all melee weapons.

The range of possible Defense (Armor Class) vales on items is vast, and can be modified by all sorts of prefixes and suffixes. Defense is not the most important stat on armor, for most characters. Melee fighters worry about it far more than ranged attackers, who play to not get into hitting range at all.

When an item you are using wears out completely, it turns red and becomes unusable, but it does not vanish, as broken items did in ''Diablo''.

Buying, selling, and repairs are made easy by the new NPC interface, where you see your inventory window on the right, and the NPCs on the left, and all items are visible, with their full requirements and whether they are one or two-handed. When you are at an NPC, your items when hovered on display their sell price, and if you left click on an item, you get a pop up yes/no confirm box for buying or selling, while a right click will buy or sell immediately.

[[Prefixes]] and [[Suffixes]] are found on magical and rare items, and are selected from the lists of possible modifiers, based largely on the level of the monster which dropped the item.

Body armor, headgear, shields, and weapons can be found with sockets in them. Into sockets can be placed gems, runes, or jewels, all of which add various modifiers to the item in question. Plain, non-magical items with sockets can be made into [[runewords]], which are special, unique-like items only possible to create by inserting the right number of runes into the right number of sockets in the right order.

Uniques and Set items have preset mods, though the values of these mods may vary somewhat. A given item might spawn with somewhere between +100-150% damage, for instance. Uniques are golden named items, and there is just one unique per item type, in most cases. Uniques are usually very good items, but are seldom the best possible item of that type. They often usually special items though, with mods not possible to find on magical or rare items.

These are pre-set on many Uniques and base items, and are also included on some of the higher-quality modifiers as well. Of course there are still strength and/or dexterity requirements for most items.

The appearance of wearable items is customized to the character in both shape and hue. There is a "one size fits all" aspect to equipment, but at least items look different when used by different classes. The silver platemail that the Paladin wears will not look the same on the Amazon, since when she equips the same item it will reshape itself to her curves. There are also many in-game graphics for equipment, with far more than the woeful three armor looks ''Diablo'' provided. Players can mix and match items to modify their character's appearance, and with all the different types of helms and weapons and shields, countless different looks are possible.