As a newbie to RPGs (my vast game experience was solely strategy before) I found the way the devs handle "nudging" characters in the right direction a bit disappointing.
Especially the first map Cyseal leaves the impression that youｴll get through with raw power alone, as fire is the way to go against the undead and freeze with Ice shards works 9 out of 10 attampts against the fire enemies in the east. Thus the first real difficulty without the man in arms and witchcraft spells lowering resistances, willpower and body building occured against the enemies at the lake in the white witch cave.
In my second playthrough (first one abandoned) I now have witchcraft on 3 characters, man at armes at on 2 and the fights are a breeze, even accidentially getting in a cross fire in Phantom Forest swamp against a group of the generic defenders and the mud lords group combined.
I likewise (as a newbie) have to admit I am slightly disappointed by devs balance decisions. E.g. 2 handers, even enhanced unique ones, are pretty much useless compared to the combination of tenebrium enhanced "Sword of Planets" and a good shield. The damage output of the one hander is better (!) if action points are taken into the equation (one hander only costs 3 instead of 4) and the 80% blocking with a level 20 shield means the tank usually takes very little physical damage even when surrounded.
To summarize it simple - with 2 glass canon mages, enough witchcraft and a good tank there is nothing like a difficult fight in DOS. While with other combinations some fights can be extremely difficult, like the one mentioned against the knight tomb guardians. Just for comparison - I had one on paper totally screwed sword fighter in the Spellforce RPG/RTS mix, trying to combine heavy and light fighting skills and white magic into one figure. The character nevertheless made it into victory easily, I was only informed after finishing the game that the build was "screwed". In DOS you can really screw your party to the point having to revert to henchmen, led into that path by the first dozen fights.
Regards,
Thorsten
