I think “poise” used to be a thing of armors many years ago. I’m not sure if it ever did anything, or if it was a feature that was supposed to be implemented, and it was referred to in some texts, but never made it to the live game. I vaguely remember ignoring it even back then.

That’s the problem with games that don’t provide you with all the numbers and stats - you never know whether a feature is useful, or if it even works.