Avenger in BGEE

I have hit level 7 as an avenger and much to my dismay, have discovered that the sword spider doesnt do poison damage on hit, unlike in the original baldur's gate 2 implementations (the sword spider is also missing an attack per round and movement speed from the permahaste it had in BG2). I was planning on using the sword spider's respectable armour class and extremely high poison damage to be me my main fighter in my party (its just me and Imoen and I had a pretty hard time getting to level 7, so I am really hoping this is fixable). But without the poison damage, the sword spider's damage output is pathetic. It averages only 3.5 damage per hit, and 4 attacks per round is a lot less impressive when your thac0 is just that of a priest without any strength, proficiency or enchantment bonuses.

On top of that, my armour class was 4 lower in BG2 in sword spider form compared to BGEE, and no equipment or other armour bonuses account for this.

I am aware however that outside of shapeshifting, sword spiders dont actually do poison damage, so:

- Is anyone else having this issue?

- If so, is this a bug, or is it an intentional fix (which happens to ruin the shapeshiting portion of the avenger kit)?

- Does anyone know of a way to restore the sword spider to its BG2 implementation?

If not, I think I am giving up on this run, bear form does reasonable damage, but with an abysmal armour class, and as I have leveled only myself and Imoen, I cant be bothered to try and train up a tank (or pick up one from an area I havent yet visited with gimped proficiency allocations).