A generic system for implementing skills, traits, and item bonuses...

I know the title is a mouthful, but if beyond it is an idea I'm excited about. Like most ideas, it came to me when I was doing something other than programming.

This iteration I'm planning on implementing varying difficulty monsters and hopefully items of varying strengths. In my previous post, I suggested using a "trait" system to implement some of the monster characteristics. For example, one wolf might be "fast"-er or "strong"-er than another, trading that off against some additional base attributes. In my head I hoped to sneak in items with enchantments; a sword that could make you tougher or a staff that made you case spells better.

It came to me that both of these use cases are very similar to the skill tree attributes I implemented last iteration. Those skills could increase base stats or allow new skills. As a programmer, when I hear of three different implementations of an idea, I get an itch to make a generic framework or factor out the pattern or something.

The crux of the idea is that all of these ideas can be implemented as a system of tags and values. For example, a skill that increases the characters base hitpoints by 5 could be:

m_player["HPBonus"] = 5;

Then to calculate the number of hitpoints in this simple example one can do something like:

// Player
int GetSkillTags(string tagName)
{
    int total = 0;
    foreach(ISkill s in Skills)
    {
         if(s.attributes.Contains(tagName))
             total += s.attributes[tagName];
    }

    foreach(IItem i in Equipment)
    {
         if(i.attributes.Contains(tagName))
             total += s.attributes[tagName];
    }
    return total;
}

// Monster
int GetSkillTags(string tagName)
{
    int total = 0;
    foreach(Dictionary<string, int> d in Traits)
    {
         if(d.Contains(tagName))
             total += d[tagName];
    }
    return total;
} 

Once I implement a given skill or trait checking in one section of the game engine using this API, creating a new skill, item attribute, or monster trait to do the same thing is trivial. Also, since checking if a dictionary contains a key is fast, it should be efficient as well.

Thoughts?