Best way to make this most efficient?

Just for fun i am going to stab at an attempt to create a small, zelda-like gameboy game in Flash/AS3.

But what is the most efficient way to create the characters movements/attacks, etc and implement them into my code? This much i think would be simple enough, but when it comes to wanting to implement different swords, sheilds, clothes, etc, how would i go about attaching these items relative to the characters position, etc?

any links to tutorials, or help on this site alone would be great, thanks.