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I like that idea of adding crafting skills. The basic start character in DS1 is a farmer, but never uses any skill from that former life. He/she just starts becoming a fighter/ranger/mage by doing those things, but leaves farmer completely behind.

There's also a bias towards creating a single-skill character in the way the game rewards your development to the point where the tutorial in DS2 even tells you you need to do that. BW's dual-classed characters really aren't, they're two new single-class characters with dedicated skill trees, so that you still need to specialize to benefit most.

It seems to me that crafting skills that work with your combat skills would be a good addition. You could add smithing to melee and make yourself better weapons and armor with lower requirements, or just build up your skills and buy the higher-requirement ones. Either path should achieve the same balance of offense and defense, but the game gets more variety. Ditto for Fletcher/Ranger and Alchemist/Mage. Any class could add Enchanting skills for the equipment bonuses, again trading enchanting skills against main path skills.
I would imagine the vendors might sell only plain equipment without any magical properties, but all would be enchantable, and maybe upgradable in non-magical ways as well, sharpening a sword, restringing a bow, etc. Spells sold would be basic-level ones, but an Alchemist would be able to upgrade their effectiveness, make them faster to cast, etc.

Parties of characters, whether in SP or MP, would benefit from crafting skills upgrading armor for all members, adding the smith's higher defense value, the fletcher's reduction of strength requirements (they know all about lightness), the Alchemist's reflection of damage and the enchanter's resistances.

The ability to collect potion materials is a pair of skills in DS2, but those are tied to character classes, and it seems to me they'd be better as part of the common Enchanter skill that any class could add to.

The hardest job for anyone trying to add this to the game is that the skill trees would need to link together, too, so that some Ranger skills would need points in Fletching, for example, and it's a bit harder to come up with a good UI for that.

Personally, I'd like this change to replace Powers, which I don't feel add anything but complexity to the game, (and really get in the way of modding!)