Several of these rune words are ladder only, meaning they can only be created on the closed realms with ladder characters normally. The most powerful rune words were almost exclusively added in the 1.10 patch, and so cannot be created unless the game is patched to at least that version. In addition, some rune words were added to the game after the expansion in either Patch 1.10 or Patch 1.11.

Rune words were introduced in the expansion, Lord of Destruction, and can not be created in classic Diablo II. The bonuses that each individual rune confers will still be applied to the item, but the added rune word bonuses will not. If these conditions are not met, the rune word will not be created and the player has potentially wasted the runes in question on a useless item. The socketed item must also have the exact number of sockets required by the rune word. The runes must be inserted into the item in the proper order and the item must be a socketed item (meaning it must have a grey name, it doesn't work on unique/set/rare/magic items that also have sockets).

When the rune word is completed, it looks much like a unique item with the only notable difference that the runes show if the the player moves the mouse over the inventory image. Rune Words are a type of item created when specific combinations of runes are inserted into socketed items.

Runewords diablo 2 in order of level