im playing the game for the second time and im up against these mages/clerics again.
the first time around they wiped the floor with me, but this time ive used the walkthrough and completed tons more quests, maximised my experience and found that these guys can be fought against.
by going at them bit by bit and then coming back ive built up enough stats to take the attribute slasher (disease spell) on the nose and keep going. of course when your stats get knocked down, all that fabby equipment is useless so i switch my guys on to cheap weapons that can be used at starting level. this means im not going at them with just punches.
my only gripe now is trying to kill the clerics before they drop the hammer on me!
so far my techniques working.
