Totems/enchanted bark

Totems of undying just feel like a one-off mechanic. They don't serve much actual purpose, and the effect isn't valuable enough for how rare they are. 

Here's what I propose: 

If the game created a crafting system for totems using enchanted wood, then we could have more types of totems, and they might have a deeper mechanical purpose than they currently serve.

Totem of fortification (1-4 hits) - if in inventory while you take a substantial blow, reduces the damage dealt to 1, or one-half heart. 

Totem of aggression - increases the damage dealt by one of your hits a substantial amount. 

Totem of no-fall (1-3 uses) - reduces falling damage to 0, but also damages the totem's durability. 

Totem of resistance (1-2 uses) - immediately nullifies a detrimental effect placed on the player. 

Totem of stamina (1-2 uses) - when activated, your actions do not drain stamina for two minutes. 

Totem of invulnerability (1 use) - when hit while holding, your health and hunger will not decrease for 5 seconds after use. 

Totem of wilderness (1-3 uses) - when breeding an animal while holding this totem, a different baby mob will spawn instead. 

I could go on, but I'm guessing you get the general idea. Essentially, they either do random, cool things or they provide better versions of potion effects, but at a higher cost. If you wanted to mitigate that, you could give most of the overpowered abilities some form of drawback. Like you could make the invulnerability totem a "turtle totem," and similar to the potion, it would reduce damage to 0 for 5 seconds, but it would also slow the player down to a crawl. 

The enchanted wood could be dropped by strong mobs in the world, as well as being enchantable. For ingredients, you might be able to use similar potions or potion components together with the wood. The wood could be enchanted as a high-level enchantment at level 30, but it would cost 5-7 levels rather than just the 3 and maybe require some ingredient other than lapis.