Well, in defense of these encounters... All three of the cursed Thorms can be roleplayed to death without fighting them at all.
My first time with the Toll Collector I had no idea what was going on, other than 'she hits really, really hard' so I went out of my way to stay out of her reach and sniping her toll assistants first. No metagaming, no character knowledge, just trying things. And the game allows that. That's how you end up with people soloing Grym by putting a health potion under the Grym Hammer and luring the baddie there, getting knocked down and healed again. That's how you end up with people enlarging their Owlbear and death-jumping the bastard.
The thing you try to describe here, is actually the strongest aspect of the game.
