Really cool ideas, szebus
. Maybe you could also customize your heroes abilities at their house; and heroes could have more abilities (like five or six) instead of just two.
The abilities could be stuff like having a berserker rage, becoming temporarily invulnerable, or doing some cool magic explosion (there shouldn't be too much magic though, since that's meant for the still nonexistent wizards).
Equipping new abilities should be free, but unlocking them at the hero house should cost wealth. You could also upgrade them, making the abilities stronger and/or last long, for wealth. There could even be a few special abilities that you can only get as a reward from quests.
edit: don't agree with permadeath, though. If your hero dies, he should be revived, or maybe it costs a little wealth to revive him? Or if you get wealth whenever you kill an enemy hero?