Crossbows in reserve are no longer ready-loaded, and the percentage of crossbow damage ignoring armour has been reduced to 45%, but it goes back up to 65% if you take the Crossbow Mastery perk (further discouragement of over-reliance on crossbows).
The damage done by spears and arming swords has been reduced (making it harder to inflict crippling injuries with the most accurate weapons).
The durability of all weapons has been increased/doubled, so that they’re a lot less likely to break in battle (further discouragement of Bags&Belts + Quick Hands).
The Lash skill with flails (with a 100% chance to hit the head on a hit) no longer ignores the basic defence bonus of shields (which it did for a while on recent versions), but it does so again if you take the Flail Mastery perk.
The scramasax has been transformed from a knife/puncture weapon into an intermediate cleaving weapon; it no longer has a +10% chance to hit but it is more durable and damaging.
You can buy bandages (to stop bleeding wounds) and antidotes (to counter poison) but you only have one active slot for them (the same as the doggy one) and you can only use them in battle (one per turn, costing 9 action points) if you aren’t engaged in melee (so it’s difficult to make any use of them against the enemy against which they’ll be most needed, i.e. goblins).
Bandit leaders all now have the Shield Expert perk (i.e. it takes twice as many hits as anticipated to smash their shields, the same as with militia).
And more besides …
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