Poison rework

[Dray]

Currently, poison is in a spot much similar to potions before Blazing Deserts release, very seldomly employed by players and borderline unused content.
The system of application and duration is the biggest problem since it needs to take up brother bag space and be put on in advance, plus since its just 4 attacks regardless if they hit or miss it feels a bit pointless. This is compounded by the effect of Resilient, causing it to essentialy do nothing on quite a few enemies.
At the same time, making it permanent for every weapon would still be trouble since itd just make the already “meta” weapon picks for duelists and the like even better since you need to do a certain amount of hp damage through armor in order to apply the effect.
So, it would be good if the application is pre battle and either permanent (like goblins have) or just lasts for more than 2 rounds of standing and swinging a 4 ap weapon. Like 6 or 8 attacks that land would make both of them far more attractive. On the flipside, maces, hammers, flails, fists and guns would not be poisonable, it both doesn’t make sense that they can be and circumvents the poison hammer duelist issue.
As for the consumables themselves, Goblin poison is a rare drop so i dont think it’d need a nerf or readjustment. If anything it would motivate and reward people to go bash Ambushers early for the chance to get some and have the edge in a critical fight. Against whom this would matter – ork warriors/warlords even though they do have Resilient also have 8 ap instead of 9. This means that even if the goblin poison starts at its weakest, it still debilitates them enough that for their next turn they’ll be able to perform only one action, but getting through that armor will need some prep work. Berserkers wont care. Barbarians neither. City state armies will probably suffer but the backline conscripts will still be able to get their attacks off even if you do poison them. Brigands would fare pretty poorly, but using gobbo poison against them would be a waste unless its a big fight and you got a few flasks from earlier. Nomads would hate it, as would Gladiators but encouraged usage of poisons in the arena would be thematic. I dont know if Savants are poisonable or do they just bleed. Out of the beasts only nachzherers and maybe serpents would have issues. Noble house troops, im not sure, it might force footmen to only hit shieldwall or if they’re dumb or fatigued to only swing once per turn. So all in all it wouldnt be too cheeseable unless you went all dagger mastery+rondel, farmed goblins for 100 days and then went to some big ork warrior camp, and massed rondels already clear house in those cases. Itd mostly be a situational tool since you aren’t able to hoard much of it in a reasonable timeframe much like the potions or berserker shrooms currently.
Poisoned oil would, out of lategame targets, only have high power against conscripts and any nimble enemies but be of questionable use against anything that’s Resilient, and the non-nimbles on whom you’d want to use it who are currently in the game tend to have enough HP or rely on armor for protection for it to not matter since by the time you can apply the effect they’re already going to die fast. However the fact that it can be bought at an alchemist shop makes them much more easy to get, so it wouldn’t be really useless either. Maybe it should get a slight price bump after its duration is increased but that’s it.
It would be cool if some more humanoids made use of the mechanic. For example, Desert Stalkers are currently just Master Archers with different gear who you fight in larger numbers since the game spawns a lot more of them in nomad camps. Why not have their ranged skill and other stats get slightly nerfed but give them the poisoned oil effect? Southern Assassins could also somtimes use it. Maybe some of the enemies in the upcoming DLC too, and/or have another sort of poison which would affect something that the goblin and oil dont that the player could also loot and apply.

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