The paladins were pretty easy, even on tactical. Don't get too cocky yet, though. Remember that you are only at the start of Act 2, and things will get much tougher from here. If you want more of a challenge, try the spider forest (I HATE poison - altho my DK uses it to good effect), or tangle with the earth elementals at the west end of the village (hint: try to kill them before they unleash their inst-death earthquake spell). I'm actually only a little way further than that, so I can't enlighten you further, but from reading posts from other forum members, it WILL get tougher. I am interested about the higher level of difficulty, though. I think I will start a game with both me and the DK as fighters on the hardest difficulty, just to see what it is like.