##### Perk Changes #####
--- Fast Adaptation: Start with 2 stacks every battle. Each stack also grants 5 initiative.
--- Crippling Strikes: Reduces threshold to inflict injuries by 20%. Has a new stacking mechanic: if you do at least 10 HP damage but fail to injure, reduce threshold to inflict injuries by an additional 15%. Max 4 stacks for -80% to threshold to injure. When you injure something, remove all stacks.  
--- Nine Lives: In addition to normal effect, gain +9 initiative. When NineLives triggers, also reduce current fatigue by half like a free 'Recover'. So if the character survives until their turn, they might have more options to escape.
--- Recover: If a character ends their turn with at least 3 unused AP, reduce the AP cost of 'Recover' by 1 on their next turn.

--- Bullseye: Also grants a +10% chance to hit when using the bow's 'Aimed Shot' skill. 
--- Resilient: Recover an additional 1 fatigue at the start of every turn.
--- Steel Brow: Gain 4% of current head armor as additional resolve. 

--- Backstabber: Also grants +10% chance to hit if the target is dazed, staggered, stunned, netted or poisoned
--- Anticipation: Effect increased from 1 + 10% to 1 + 20% of base ranged defense per tile distance. Minimum bonus defense changed from 10 to 15.
--- Brawny: Also grants +20% chance to successfully break free of nets.
--- Relentless: Also reduces the amount of fatigue gained by 1 when attacked, hit or miss. On hit: 5 -> 4. On Miss: 2 -> 1.
--- Rotation: When used, gives a low probability positive morale check to both character involved.

--- Axe Mastery: When using axes, regular attacks which hit a shield do additional damage to the shield. 1-handed axes do 6 damage. 2-handed axes do 9. This damage is unaffected by modifiers (i.e. Shield Mastery, Shield Wall). 

--- Reach Advantage: In addition to regular effect, also gives 1AP when you kill an enemy with a 2-handed weapon.
--- Lone Wolf: Also gives +15% Initiative when active.
--- Footwork: When used, grants +20% initiative until the end of the current round. Since this effect is removed at the end of the round, it does not change order next round. Usage is somewhat niche, but can give additional defense with dodge, and additional damage with fencer lunge. 

##### Item Changes #####
--- 2-handed flails now have an 80% chance to stun on head hits (replaces the 30% chance to stun on any hit in vanilla)
--- 1-handed flails have a 20% chance to stun on head hits. 
--- 3-headed flails have 15% chance to stun on head hits, but this can be triggered by any of the 3 mini-hits per attack. 
--- 'Spearwall' has a +10% chance to hit per adjacent ally also Spearwalling. 2-handed and 1-handed spears all count for this. 
--- 'Spearwall' skill for the Spetum and Warfork reduced from 35 fatigue to 30 (same as 1-handed spears)
--- 'Gash' skill for Scimitar/Shamshir no longer reduces injury threshold. Instead, applies Overwhelm if the enemy is injured. Can stack with effect from 'Overwhelm' perk, applying x2 in one attack.
--- Slings have 70% chance to stagger on any hit, in addition to the 'daze' they already apply on head hits.
--- Slings and 'Ignite Firelance' both do full damage to skeletons. In vanilla they do 33% and 25% damage respectively.
--- 'Riposte' reduced from 25 to 20 fatigue.
--- Fencing Sword 'Lunge' reduced from 25 to 20 fatigue.
--- Spider poison coated on a weapon lasts 8 swings rather than 4 before being used up. The effect on the target lasts 4 turns rather than 3.
--- Goblin poison coated on a weapon lasts 6 swings rather than 4 before being used up. It also applies its weakest effect to the target for an extra turn (-3AP, -2AP, -1AP, -1AP). 

##### One Completely New Perk #####
--- Tactical: Available in the 6th tier of perks, next to BattleForged. Only active when wearing 'Medium' Armor: -14 to -22 fatigue modifier on the body, and -7 to -15 fatigue on the helmet. 'Recover' requires -1 AP. Gain +5% Max Fatigue for each 'tactical' skill you learn: 'Recover', 'Adrenaline', 'Rotation', 'Footwork', 'Rally', 'Taunt', and 'Indomitable'. Also gain a scaling damage resistance based on Max Fatigue after all equipment is accounted for. Scales linearly from 0% resistance at 50 or lower Max Fatigue to 30% resistance at 150 or greater Max Fatigue

##### Enemy Changes #####
--- Loot rates from beasts of all kinds are increased. Where it makes sense and was lacking, I also added a chance to drop 'Strange Meat'. So hunting beasts far in the wilderness is a good way to delay resupply in towns.
--- Barbarians, Mercenaries, Desert Gunner, Desert Stalker, Desert Devil, Noble Greatswords, Swordmasters all have 'Anticipation' in Vanilla. Since the perk was significantly buffed, their base ranged defense has been reduced so that ranged weapons have about the same effectiveness against them as in Vanilla.
--- Goblins lost 'Anticipation' entirely, and had it replaced by 'Backstabber'. Base ranged defense was increased to partially compensate for loss of anticipation. They will be slightly easier to hit by ranged, and much better at hitting you thanks to backstabber.
--- As exceptions to the above, VIP enemies have effective ranged defense slightly reduced: Goblin Shamans, Barbarian Drummers and Beastmasters, Necromancers, and Hexen. Snipers rejoice!

##### Mechanics Changes #####
--- Undead can now be injured, but the rules are a little different. Undead have the same HP threshold as normal, and then roll from the same injury pool as normal. However, if they roll an injury that does not make sense for undead (i.e. pierced lung, cut artery) they simply don't get an injury. In practice, this means that blunt weapon injuries on the body have a 7/11 chance to actually injure undead. A broken arm might not hurt a skeleton too much, but it's going to make it harder to get leverage with their weapon! Head hits and other weapon types will never injure. 
--- When a shield is broken, the bearer is staggered.
--- Damage-over-time effects (Bleeding, Spider Poison, Holy Water, Acid) trigger at the start of the turn rather than the end. 
--- Damage-over-time effects also grant XP if enemies die to them. You get nothing if this happens in Vanilla.

##### Starting Scenario Changes #####
--- 'Beast Hunters': Beast hunting contracts now appear more frequently. Your brothers can no longer become 'Addicted' from the overuse of crafted potions and performance enhancing drugs.

##### Design Notes #####
--- I think the 'Fatigue Neutral' build is a little too dominant in vanilla. But I think this is less an issue with the build being too strong than it is with the alternative being too weak/limited. Being able to kill and recover in a single turn can make high fatigue/high damage characters very strong. But this pattern is only possible with 4AP attacks, a small subset of builds. So big heavy two-handers are encouraged to be fatigue neutral because wasting an entire turn to recover fatigue is pretty bad. With this mod, basically any weapon type CAN include the ability to kill+recover, as long as you're willing to spend the perks. There are multiple ways to discount the AP cost of recover, which combines with Berserk+Reach advantage to allow even two-handers to kill+recover. 

--- Despite the above, there are also some new ways to build fatigue-neutral bros. In vanilla, swords and spears are generally outshined by armor piercing alternatives in lategame. You still don't want to take one-handed swords and spears against orc warriors, but with Resilient+Weapon Mastery they can swing twice every turn, helping them compete with heavier maces and hammers. And with reduction in sword AOE fatigue, a named greatsword with another -2 fatigue on skills can be pretty special. 

--- Focusing on inflicting injuries is very weak in vanilla. Crippling Strikes is a bad perk because it is almost never relevant. It is difficult to impossible to injure high HP monsters. It is also useless against low hp enemies like goblins because they are going to be injured anyway. And of course undead are completely immune. With this mod, 'Crippling Strikes' is weak but not completely useless against undead. And it is excellent against high HP monsters like Unholds and Lindwurms. A Lindwurm has 1100 hp. The normal injury threshold is 25%, which is impossible to reach. With the new 'Crippling Strikes' you can spend a few turns to build up 4 stacks, reducing that injury threshold to 5%. 55 hp is entirely practical, and once it is injured you have a large hp pool to take advantage of bonuses from 'Executioner' and 'Gash' 

--- In vanilla, breaking enemy shields is almost never a good idea. Usually all it does is waste time, fatigue, and give the enemy a massive damage boost. Applying stagger when a shield is broken gives you a window to burst the vulnerable enemy down before they can use their increased damage. It also synergizes well with overwhelm or backstabber. Allowing axes to do increased damage to shields on regular attacks also reduces the fatigue and time cost to break shields. At the same time, I didn't want to make it too easy to break shields because tanks are important for player strategy. So using Shieldwall increases how long they last. Where an orc warrior can blitz down a shield in a single turn with 'Split Shield' in vanilla, the new shieldwall delays this. The aim is for axe mastery to provide consistent chip damage to shields, while 'Split Shield' can finish it off effectively but only when the Shieldwall is off. 

--- Bows trade longer range for reduced damage/AP when compared to crossbows and throwing weapons. One niche use for bowmen is as VIP snipers. They can kill the necromancers and hexen behind the meat shields, but those shots are still usually low probability. Given that a good archer is a big investment which needs to be protected and takes a long time to build up before becoming useful, I think they needed a little boost. This mod leans into that sniper role. With potential accuracy bonuses from Bullseye, Backstabber, and +20% on turn 1 from Fast Adaptation. Most snipe targets also have a slightly reduced ranged defense.

--- I find poison to be barely worth using in vanilla. Poison consumables are particularly tricky because they require an item slot, need to be activated away from enemies, require hp damage to apply, and you only have a few attacks before they wear off. So frequently I end up wacking away against fresh armored enemies and fail to do enough hp damage. Even when they are applied, it's small chip damage. Frequently, I would get an enemy to low health such that their dot effects will finish them. But because it occurs at end of turn, it is usually still smart to spend an action to kill them so they can't do any more damage. This is always disappointing because it means the DoT effect was literally useless. Moving the damage to start of turn is a small buff to a weak mechanic, but it is extremely satisfying to watch the enemy die to poison or bleed more often. There is also some additional synergy between poison and backstabber. 

--- I find beast economy to be disappointing in vanilla. Especially in the early game, these fights are usually riskier than the usual bandit fodder, and you only get a couple crafting components. When compared to the desperately needed equipment that bandits drop, it is almost never worth it. Also, because there aren't any spawned 'locations' for most beasts, these fights tend to be rarer. So if you want to craft a bunch of equipment, you often have to wander the wilderness and hope you get lucky to find the specific monsters you need. The rarity of materials also encourages the hoarding mentality for consumables. I don't want to use potions or poisons before a fight unless I REALLY need them because it might be a while before I can craft them again. More generous loot drops from beasts helps all these issues. And the 'beast slayers' starting scenario begins to really feel like a 'witcher' experience. 

--- Game Difficulty. At first glance, it might seem like all these buffs just make the game much easier. But remember, enemies benefit from them too. Orc Warriors get extra resolve from steel brow. Enemy flails will stun you. Webknechts have fast adaptation, and that +20% chance to hit at start really hurts when all 30 spiders get it. Goblins are definitely scarier. With backstabber, their frequent use of (buffed) poison and nets gives a +10% chance to hit on top of the surround bonus. Their archers get a double benefit from buffed bullseye and poison for +20% chance. I'd appreciate any balance feedback if you run into fights that are too hard or too easy.

##### Mod Compatibility #####
This touches many vanilla perks and items, so do not expect compatibility with other overhaul mods that adjust those things. It should work with QoL mods, so please let me know if you run into issues with those.