Rules update 2015
Overview
Over winter of 2014/2015 we have carried out a review of the rules from the second year of Empire. As a result of that review we are implementing some changes to the published rules. We are in the process of updated the wiki to reflect the changes, but will summarize and explain all changes here so that players can identify the changes easily.
We will try to include a section after each rules update to explain the reasoning behind the change.
Venom
We have changed venom so that it reduces your bleed time to 30 seconds rather than zero. Characters with the fortitude skill will now find their bleed time is increased by ten seconds per level while under the venom condition. Your character card will list your bleed time with and without venom separated by a slash. For example a character with one level of fortitude would see "Bleed time: 3 mins/30 secs"
We are in the process of updating a small number of magical items and rituals to make them compatible with the new rules. They will be listed here as they are updated.
Reasoning
Under the previous rules, venom was such a potent call that it was difficult for us to use the call more than sporadically. This conflicted with elements of the campaign since both Druj and Vallorn make extensive use of poisons. A call that is highly lethal but extraordinarily uncommon is also not good rules design. Since characters will rarely encounter it, player knowledge of how it works tends to be limited and it is hard to play balance items and rituals that help to mitigate the effects.
The aim of the rules change for venom is to allow the call to be used more commonly on battles and skirmishes without simply wiping out large numbers of characters. The goal is to ensure that venom remains a dangerous and scary call - but is one that players can protect themselves against through good fighters, good healers, and good military organization.
Fortitude is a relatively uncommon skill perhaps because it is not well valued by players, so the new rules change allows us to make fortitude slightly stronger by allowing it to effect venom. The unstoppable heroic skill is very common, reflecting the fact that it is very popular with players, so we did not see any reason to change the fact that unstoppable cannot be used while under the venom condition.
A few players had expressed concerns that "Venom-Impale" was the call of choice for all assassins working in pairs and represented something of an exploit that went against the spirit of the game. While we didn't agree with that judgement particularly, we aren't unhappy that the new rules make this particular combination significantly less potent as an assassination tool - it will mean that assassins will have more options to consider when planning their carefully executed hits rather than a single optimal strategy.