What each one does:

• cooking: group buffs
• alch: healing, ofc
• bs: weapons, heavy armor
• tail: light armor, boots, gloves, belts
• JC: rings, amulets
• insc: tats, glyphs, scrolls
• ench: wands, staves, all that jazz

Approach 1: standard d&d

Approach 2: fallout style

There are a finite number of important items: weapon, armor, implement, etc. But they have lots of upgrade potential.

Armor

Cloth

Leather (light)

Slots:

• primary material
• reinforcement
• lining

Material

• Rank 0
  • Ordinary leather/hide/fur
• Rank 1
  • Basilisk hide:
  • Displacer beast
• Rank 2
  • Catoblepas hide: negative energy resist
  • Hydra hide: regeneration

Reinforcement

• Rank 0
  • Chitin (giant insects/arthropods): bonus hardness
  • Staghorn: slashing resist
• Rank 1
  • Giant Scorpion chitin: poison resist
  • Prismatic Beetle Swarm shells: hypnotic pattern
• Rank 2
  • Bulette Scale: burrow speed

Lining

• Rank 0
  • Fur, etc
• Rank 1
  • Harpy feather
  • Winter wolf fur: cold resist
• Rank 2
• Rank 3
  • Roc feather: flight

Metal (heavy)