The first time I tried going through the temple I had my warrior using a bow to take out some of the skeletons. I was a relatively low level, though, and went through enough potions I decided to reload and come back later. When I did return, my creature made fairly short work of the skeletons; I did use the bow again a couple times, but if I wanted to stick to a pure melee warrior I could have.
I can not remember if it was the first or second time through there, but I did leave the trail a couple times to check out chests, requiring a healing potion to make it back to the trail. Unfortunately, the best thing I ever got out of the chests was a healing potion, so it wasn't worth the effort. If necessary, though, a pure warrior could Rush Attack a skeleton and drink a potion to get back to safety, assuming they didn't get too far into the poison or take too long to finish it off.
