For others trying to implement this idea, I might be able to save you some time. There's some missing information that makes this not as cut and dry as it could be for non-experts like myself.
If I'm stealing too much from the OP, please let me know.
You're going to need these two files:
http://dm.next-gen.org/wow_items.js
http://dm.next-gen.org/wow_items.css
Drop them both in the same directory as your phpbb.
Next, you need to create a php file as stated previously. If you don't want to edit the javascript file, call it hole_tooltip.php. I had to modify mine slightly to avoid a php warning.
<?
$url = 'http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/item-tooltip.xml?i='.$_GET['itemid'];
$string = file_get_contents($url);
$string = str_replace("images", "http://armory.worldofwarcraft.com/images", $string);
echo $string;
?>
Next, you need to modify your viewtopic.php/showthread.php to support the [item]. I placed mine directly under the section that checks to see if your forums support bbcode. Look for a line that says "// Parse message and/or sig for BBCode if reqd" and slap this in there:
$message = preg_replace("/\[item=(.*?)\,(.*?)\](.*?)\[\/item\]/", '<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/?item=$1" class="rarity$2" target="_new" onmouseover="showtip(event,\'$1\');" onmousemove="showtipatcursor(event);" onmouseout="hidetip();"><b>$3</b></a>', $message);
Last, you need to modify the header file for the template your forums use.
Add this line in the "style" area of the header file:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="./wow_items.css">
Add this line in the "javascript" area of the header file:
<script type="text/javascript" src="./wow_items.js"></script>
Add this snippet of html after the </head> tag:
<div style="display: none; position: absolute; z-index: 999999; top: 10px; width: 300px; left: 10px;" class="tooltip" id="tooltipcontainer">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td class="tl"></td>
<td class="t"></td>
<td class="tr"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="l"><q></q></td>
<td class="bg">
<div id="toolBox">
</div>
</td>
<td class="r"><q></q></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="bl"></td>
<td class="b"></td>
<td class="br"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
I think that's everything. Enjoy.