I think I died a dozen times in that fight before changing out Shadowhearts spells for command hehe. I never managed to kill the other Cambions though. I think that battle is down to luck, like whether dude misses in his opening attack or the flayer lands a crit or something. But you can still sorta punk him and run off with his sword which felt pretty good to me.
For the general difficulty, Tactician was entertaining for me on the first run, but I agree we need anther level.
I'd rather they added a 4th tier of difficulty than changing what they already have, and for that one perhaps try some different angles. People dislike trash mobs, but I wouldn't mind some added monsters to encounters. To me this is more satisfying than meeting the same guy again with just with a ton of buffs, least with another enemy things like pre-position reset the meta. I don't mind potions and consumables, inflating hp or making the resistances off the chats is less interesting to me than like if an Angkeg just showed up, or there was a 4th Ogre or whatever.
I agree with earlier suggestions that perhaps the point buy would be a fun way to scale it, reduced XP, fewer resources or a more challenging form of rest etc. People grumble about random encounters or ambushes but I think you need something like that as a randomizer, where the camp can be periodically attacked and we have to expend resources to properly defend it.
Also to stage in more sequential battles that stretch the short/long rest and push the player to expend more of these very high value consumables and scrolls. Basically little preambles or epilogues to the familiar fights. An added mini-boss here and there or gang of bandits with some flavor to their getups.
I think another feature would be to add retainers and dependents as a feature of the camp, meaning that the more people you keep around the more it costs in camp supplies or things of that sort. A good use of regular equipment and supplies would be arm a B team and then have to keep them alive periodically. Camp animals might be subject to kidnappings or raids might interrupt us with setpiece battles similar to what Halsin does if you go psycho path in Act I.
Any sort of respec via Withers type stuff should probably be limited to like once per play or just be extortionately expensive so it's not a go to, but still available for stuff like multiclassing companions. I think on the higher difficulty scales companions should not be able to respec their primary class, but only their subclass, which would help them to become more of resource. Ie if you have to try and keep them alive, and if they die you can't just transform someone else into a completely different role than what they start out as to refill that slot. You know so you can't just respec Shadowheart to be a striker/fighter with 20 STR if your Lae'zel goes down lol. Here the player could attempt the no rez run, where you have to treat the potential companions the same way you would healing potions and scrolls hehe. Maybe in that one Withers will let you make 3 hirelings and you can fully customize them, but they're really expensive? Making resurrection more difficult with penalties to constitution for our regular followers might have the camp hangers on become more of a resource to manage in that way too. Maybe there could also be some sort of blood sacrifice where you can exchange one companion for another via Raphael for resurrection if it comes to that, but just higher costs generally. Could be interesting.
Mostly though I'd just like to see more enemies and traps or things which test the meta of it more with some randomizers of that sort and just dampen the bonuses/resources. Otherwise eventually you kinda end up in the same place regardless, so I think things like that could make a difference. Long as it isn't a slog, or a wipefest, I think they could add more enemies to a number of the setpiece battles and I'd probably have fun with that, long as there's some sort of initiative thing to make sure the party doesn't get hosed waiting endlessly for a turn. I think some fights would be better than others, depending on how many characters are already in the area. But definitely for exterior wilderness or transition type areas, I think some more surprises there to keep us on our toes that's additive in that way.
